


Till the End of The World

by articulatez



Series: Into My Arms [1]
Category: Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008)
Genre: Betrayal, Blood and Gore, Drug Use, F/M, Loss of Virginity, Murder, Vaginal Fingering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-20
Updated: 2018-04-20
Packaged: 2019-04-25 08:56:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 21
Words: 61,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14375379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/articulatez/pseuds/articulatez
Summary: Shilo tries to navigate life after the opera. Graverobber helps... sort of.





	1. Zydrate Support Network

**Author's Note:**

> This was written in 2011! Enjoy this relic, let me know what you think. Uploading solely so I can upload and complete the sequel.

"Looks cold out," he said, his eyebrows jumping up and down, nodding pointedly to her chest. He stood next to her in the icy rain, waiting for traffic to clear.

Kid still wasn't wearing a bra. She looked at him, confused, and said, "Yeah, it's raining."

He chuckled and dipped his head to speak into her ear, breath hot on her neck. "You getting _wet_ , kid?" he asked in a low rumble.

And, well... then she'd just looked up at him like an adorably pathetic drowned creature until he offered her his coat. It was huge on her, like a tent, and she pulled it over her head as he dragged her across the street, darting between cars because, fuck it, he wasn't waiting another minute. He had the Zydrate Support Network to crash.

No, it wasn't any fun to tease little Shilo. He didn't know if she even had a libido to speak of. In their brief acquaintance (what had it been, three days?) she'd consistently failed to notice his caresses... so it never went any further. And those tiny skirts she ran around in? Forget about it. That kid was hot and she didn't even know it.

Unfortunately for her, Graverobber wasn't the only one who'd noticed. It seemed like every straight male in the city wanted to get their hands on her. He wouldn't have to worry about it at the meeting. Probably.

"Wasn't this in an alley last time?" Shilo asked as they entered a building that looked a lot like a cafeteria. A tiny, sad cafeteria that served only coffee and donuts.

Addicts sat and stood around eating, brightly colored but strangely washed out. They all perked up when Graverobber entered their midst. He forgot about Shilo entirely, and she backed into a corner. Of course she was shy, but she had to learn to mingle sometime, so he couldn't go "rescuing her" from some perfectly harmless scalpel sluts.

A man with black and green hair panted and barked like a dog until he got shot in the neck; his tattooed girlfriend pulled him onto a table as he passed out, and when she got her dose in the forearm, she managed to stagger to her paramour and collapse beside him.

Graverobber helped himself to a donut while the sluts and addicts crowded around him. He waved them off and took a step toward the corner. Shilo was watching curiously. The blonde woman from Shilo's first time watching Zydrate in action cut between them. She was sober...-er than before.

"Hey, it's the kid. The one from TV." Hand on her hip, she looked the kid slowly up and down. "What've you got on under that tarp?"

Graverobber smirked, waited to see how the kid handled herself.

"Huh? Oh, this is- sorry, do you want this back?" Shilo mumbled, taking off the drenched coat and offering it to him. He took it and folded it over his arm. It was too wet to wear. Shilo looked like a cat out of the bath, and her microscopic black dress was clinging to her skin, showing off every girlish curve. He found something very interesting on the scalpel slut's outfit to stare at. Yeah, let's look at that.

The woman whistled. "Graverobber, you gotta do something about this girl. I'm not even a skirtchaser, and I want a bite of that."

Shilo's eyes widened to the size of dinner plates.

"She doesn't have any clothes," Graverobber said. He chuckled and corrected himself: "She doesn't have any age appropriate clothes."

"What's wrong with how I dress?" Shilo asked defensively.

Graverobber was trying to avert his leer, really, but she made it so difficult. He pushed through the junkies and looked her dead in the eyes as he simply stated, "Kid, as much as I love the view, your clothes don't fit. Look." He grabbed at her sleeve. It bunched tightly and looked uncomfortable. She gave him a fearful look and he threw his hands up, backing off.

"When's the last time you went shopping?" the woman drawled. She was making fuck-me eyes at Graverobber, who was having difficulties not making fuck-me eyes at Shilo. He fitted the Zydrate gun with another vial and beckoned the woman forward. She'd pay him later...

"Never. Dad brought me my clothes, whatever I asked for, but... that was years ago," she said. She had a far away look in her eyes that was absolutely depressing. He had to snap her out of it. The blonde Z addict was on her hands and knees; he quickly pushed her head back, shot the glow into her neck, and pushed her out of the way.

"I know just the place!" he said, dashing forward excitedly.

 


	2. An Appropriate Wardrobe

Graverobber couldn't believe he was going to spend money on the kid. It was his money, and she probably had plenty of dough back at her house. But something stopped him from bringing it up. Maybe it was the sad, distant look in her eyes when she heard about everything from Repo Man to Mag's farewell song, or how he'd have to take her all the way home and then explain to her about the magical world of financing. Whatever the reason, he bypassed common sense, instead dragging her straight from the support meeting to a shop.

He'd have taken her elsewhere, somewhere he felt more at home, but the blonde slut reminded him that most respectable young ladies don't wear things off of corpses. He didn't see what was the problem with a little dirt, but he'd take her at her word.

This was a hole in the wall. He bought his gauntlets here. He fucking loved those gauntlets.

"You buy clothes here?" she asked.

"No, kid, I take 'em off dead people," he replied with just enough sarcasm to keep her wondering. He let go of her hand and pushed her in lightly. She stood stock still.  
"Pick something out," he suggested.

There was pure confoundment in her eyes. "What clothes do people need? To wear?"

Which put Graverobber with the task of dressing a teenaged girl. Not the most unpleasant job... He grinned and moved his arm in a graceful arc, the wrist flicking out to indicate the dressing rooms; really just small boxy rooms with heavy, blue velvet curtains in front.

"What do I do?" she asked, pulling the curtain back.

"Take off your clothes." He was shocked and pleased to see her eyes widen in ... embarrassment? No, disbelief. Oh well. "I'm serious, kid. Take everything off and I'll bring you something."

He deliberately took his time, picking out girl clothes in the smallest size. He felt like a pervert, going through the bras and panties, but sometimes one has to make sacrifices for the greater good. Even if the greater good is real genetic perfection getting covered up. He made his way back to the alluring curtain and announced, "Delivery."

Her arm, pale and slender, reached out and took the bundle of clothing. He leaned against the wall, bored, as fabric rustled and zippers zipped. Then her voice hissing, "Come on, work! No, stupid-" A wail of frustration, taking a deep breath. "Um, could you help me with this?"

Shilo was asking him to come in? Unbelievable. "How undressed are you?"

"Partially. I can't get this stupid- unghhh! - to work!"

He pulled the curtain aside; she gasped and turned away from him. She'd gotten the pants on, anyway...

"Had trouble with the bra, Shilo?"

She turned her head to look at him and nodded pathetically. She'd been trying to pull the hooks together with her arms behind her back. He stepped forward.

"I'm more in the business of taking these off," he informed her coolly, his hands moving up her back to where the red lace fell open against her skin. She didn't respond. He hooked the bra together and left his fingers there, just under the band. In that brief moment, he felt her shiver at his touch.

"Try the shirt," he said helpfully.

"Get out," she replied, stubbornly refusing to turn away from the wall.

"Make up your mind! Do you want me in or out?"

"OUT!" Her hand stabbed out, pointing at the curtain. He retreated back to just outside.

Aaaand she was taking forever. He considered just leaving. He had other things to do... Finally, she pulled the curtain back. It was well worth the wait.

The kid stood there in shiny black pants that left as little to the imagination as her mini-skirts. Above was a cobalt blue t-shirt with a bright Zydrate Z splashed across the front. It was low, and rather than suck against her skin, giving the impression of a little girl in clothes that had shrunk in the wash, it was loose enough to cling. She still looked too young, damn it. He spun his finger with an indulgent smile and she turned to show that the back was a plastic panel, reminiscent of something a body or a hospital bed would be wrapped in.

"So what do you think?" she asked uncertainly, looking over her shoulder at him. "Good? Bad?"

"It's... distracting," he granted. If she wore that, he'd always want to snap her bra. And smack her ass.

"Is that bad? I'm not even sure if it fits."

"Oh, it does. If you like it, we can get it. Just get back in there," he said, giving her a friendly shove.

Several outfits later, they walked out with bags weighting down the teenager (what? Graverobber wasn't going to carrying shopping bags... he had a reputation to uphold). She'd changed from the highly inappropriate black dress to a marginally improved black dress. The fabric would have gone to her knees if not for the hot pink and red tulle. So when she walked, flashes of red and pink and the white of her thighs showed. She'd grumbled, "This is too colorful" at most of what he'd picked out. "I'll look like one of those... women."

"Not a problem," he'd assured her.

"I like my pajamas. Why can't I just wear them?"

Because what she considered pajamas looked like lingerie to the rest of the population. Duh.

 

 


	3. Ice Cream

"Please?"

"No. Absolutely not." He made to keep walking, but she grabbed at his sleeve, digging her heels in. It was cute. He could drag her off her feet if he wanted to, without much effort. The thought must have crossed her mind, too, because she dropped her arm to her side.

"Come on!" she pleaded.

"Why should I?"

She huffed, blowing a strand of hair off of her face. "I've been in my house all my life and I've never had one. After this, I won't ask you to buy me anything else."

He grinned luridly at her. "Make me a better offer."

She froze as he took a few steps toward her, a swagger in the ease of his stride. She put her hand up and he halted. "Dad left two dead bodies in the house. They're a couple days old. That's fresh Zydrate, right?"

"Yeah, that'll work." For now. "I can't believe I'm buying you ice cream."

"Can I get chocolate?" she asked cheerily as he opened the door for her. She was practically skipping, dancing into the shop. Seriously, what kind of person wants ice cream when it's freezing outside? Granted, it had stopped raining...

"Whatever you want," he said smoothly. "Buy it yourself. Here."

He grabbed her arm, and she looked at him inquisitively as he turned it with the palm facing up, dropping a few coins into her hands. She picked up each coin one by one, looking intently at the money. Her eyes lit up at the sight of a glass counter with all flavors on display in open cartons and she wandered over. He could've sworn she glanced back at him and mouthed "Jackpot!"

He slumped at a booth and waved off a pesky waiter. It was amusing to watch the shut-in survivor of that bloodbath order ice cream. The concoction was a cone towered high with chocolate and strawberry ice cream, cherry and caramel sauce, and whipped cream. She fumbled with holding the cone and counting out change; with a put-upon sigh, he got up to help her.

The guy behind the counter was staring down the front of her dress and doing a poor job of hiding it. Graverobber bared his teeth, his eyes widening so he looked half-crazy. The guy stumbled and flinched, eyes bugged out. Shilo was too busy eyeing her treat to notice either of them. He paid and they left.

"So let me get this straight. You're how old and you've never had ice cream?"

She took a bite out of the side. "I've had ice cream-"

"Aha!"

"-in a carton. Not like this. It was a treat when I got sick...er."

"You don't go shopping. You don't talk to people. You don't get ice cream. What do you do, kid?"

"I had hobbies!" she said defensively. "I studied stars, watched people, read. Collected bugs..."

"Do you? That is fascinating."

She was quiet for a long time before adding, "It's why I was in the graveyard."

He couldn't think of an adequate response and left her to her thoughts. She seemed happy enough with the ice cream, and eventually it was gone. She licked her fingers delicately to get the last of the chocolate/strawberry/syrup monstrosity, but for the most part she'd been a dainty eater. Except.

"Hold up, kid. You got some on you." A dab of white her tongue had missed, at the corner of her mouth. She stopped walking.

He leaned forward and swiped his thumb to pick up the whipped cream, hovered with his thumb brushing her mouth. She slowly closed her eyes and ever so slightly tilted her head up toward him. Expectantly.

He chuckled and moved his hand up to his own mouth, waiting until her eyes fluttered open before licking the whipped cream off his thumb. It was so much more satisfying to tease her now, seeing the frustration in her eyes.

"Let's get you home, kid."

 


	4. House Call

 

He knew that he'd broken into her place. (Okay, he hadn't known that it was, in fact, _her place_ at the time, but that wasn't his fault.) He got whose house it was now, obviously, but it was still a shock as the kid's ghostly figure unlocked the fence and shut it again behind them. This was her house. She lived here.

She hesitated at the door.

"My mom's all around the house," she told him, as if in warning. "I guess that isn't normal."

Graverobber knew full well what her house was like, but she didn't need to know that. He'd been so close to her bedroom when he was in that hallway, the eerie projections of a smiling, frozen woman aligning the walls. He'd broken the glass and hauled the cold, veiled body off of its perch, over his shoulder, and down the stairs he'd fled.

How was he supposed to know the body was Shilo's mother, preserved there all that time?

He found out at the opera, too late to do anything about it. Shilo would never understand why he had done what he did. She still had choices in this world. Her choice on the blood-soaked stage wasn't a real one, and if Rotti had done his homework, he'd have realized that the girl wanted freedom and to be listened to more than financial security.

The girl spoke up, quietly, "It's okay. It scares me, too." She'd opened the door and stood at the foot of the stairs. He crossed the threshold and shut the door firmly. Click.

"Oh, I'm not scared."

"You aren't?" She took a step back on the stairs, hand on the rail.

"I'm elated. A girl just invited me into her house. Usually, there are certain implications," he drawled, quirking an eyebrow.

She gasped and ran up the stairs. Her door slammed and he heard a key rattle in the lock. He grinned, then took a look around. Everything was much the same since he'd broken in, austere and dark and, yeah, there was another projection of Shilo's mom over the-

The fireplace was open. Hey, would you look at that. Further investigation showed that Repo Man had hidden a studio for his human slicing in his own house. He followed the passage to the lab and nearly tripped over the bodies. Gencops. He wasn't overly fond of them, and it looked like Repo had dispatched of them with more mercy than the sadists deserved. He'd spent who knows how many nights running and hiding from these people, and he relished getting them back in his own special way. It would piss them off if they knew that Graverobber was going to make money off their Zydrate. No chance at arresting him now for these two corpses. Fate's a bitch.

He kicked them over, face up, and pulled out his kit, humming under his breath. The needle slid up the right nostril, careful, concentrating... and it came out blue, the filled vial going into a holster. Humming cheerfully, he moved on to the second cop. He fitted the extractor with an empty vial. He vaguely registered the sounds of a door opening in the distance, boots on the stairs. He looked up from his work just as Shilo walked in. He put the second vial, full of the glow, in his holster and folded up his pack with care.

She was barely in the doorway, fear and curiosity mingled in her expression.

"What's this about?" he asked wryly, brushing his hands off on his sleeves.

"You're still here," she said.

"As are you. Did you know about this?"

This being the lab. It even gave him the creeps. He could hardly imagine Repo Man giving his kid a grand tour of the torture chamber, but her home life could be more twisted than the limits of his imagination. It was possible!

She slowly shook her head and put her hand on the wall, leaned her weight on it. "The first night back, I saw the door. So thoughtful of Dad to leave the bodies where I could find them, wasn't it?"

He was surprised at the sarcasm dripping from her voice. He hadn't known her tone could reach past timid fear and confusion. At any rate, shouldn't she be used to death by now? Shouldn't she be used to the fact that Daddy is the Organ Repo Man?

"Even more thoughtful was you telling me about them. I just go to the graveyards. This is fresh." He turned a corpse squishily on its belly with his boot. Shilo flinched.

"Graverobber, Graverobber, sometimes I wonder if you need a spotter," she said, her words an imitation of Amber's. She backed up, the shadows of the passageway swallowing her.

"Hm?" He hopped up the steps, but she'd retreated back to the main house. He saluted the bodies and darted after her. She was sitting on the steps waiting for him. Her hair had fallen over her eyes some, and she pushed it back to look at him. He closed the fireplace behind him.

"You helped me. I could help you, too," she said.

He thought about working with her, weighing the very few positives with the fuckton of drawbacks. She'd extracted Zydrate once already, from Marni, and watched him that first night in the graveyard, so she was familiar with the process. Fact of the matter was that she wasn't quick enough. He'd have to drag her everywhere. He thought about her aversion to the needle and discounted the notion of her assisting him in that respect. What was she really offering? 'A spotter?' To find fresh kills for his needles? Cute gesture, but pointless, and he doubted she had the stomach for it.

"I know what you're getting at, and no thanks. I've got corpses aplenty to choose from. The city's paved with bodies," he said happily.

Her face momentarily wrinkled in disgust.

"The little glass vials I just got are good enough for me," he said. "Stay out of trouble from here on and the score'll be even."

"You're the one who keeps getting me in trouble," she replied with a scowl, getting to her feet.

"Hey, I said I was sorry!"

She huffed. "You did." His chagrin shifted back into the usual self-assured grin. "It's late," she said stiffly. "Don't you have a coffin to crawl into?"

"Dumpsters are more comfortable," he said seriously.

"You should go."

"Oh?" He strolled to her, one step down, his face so close he could hear her breath quicken in shallow exhalations. She couldn't lean back to get distance or she'd fall. Her hand fumbled for the rail. He could put a hand on her back and shove her body tight against him. He could throw her down on the stairs and let his sex-crazed mind go wild with that delicious scenario. "What if I don't? You going to throw me out?" he leered.

She stammered, "I- I... I don't..."

He smiled, friendly and harmless all over again, and retreated, twisting the knob on the front door. "Relax, kid. I'll see you around."

"What the hell was that?" she demanded.

"Pretty thing like you? Sometimes I can't help myself," he said. He bowed with one arm behind his back, opened the door, and was gone.

 


	5. Dumpster Diving

Shilo peeked one way out the gate, then the other, finally creeping off of the Wallace property with a bag slung over her shoulder. She'd only gone about a block when she quite literally stumbled over a body. She gasped and fell backwards, half expecting someone - her dad, Rotti, Graverobber, SOMEONE - to catch her, but she hit the pavement with a thud. She didn't notice any pain because she was staring at the body, which was very dead. Freshly killed. It was a man, muscle wasted away and blood and rain ruining his white shirt. The eyes were wide open, an artificial, noxious gold, and the throat was torn out in a bloody mess. Not cut, but ripped. What did that? A serrated knife? A vicious dog? She shuddered at the thought. Was it a reposession? No, of course not; he still had his fake eyes, and everything else was there. No way to take out organs through the neck, she was pretty sure.

Weren't your eyes supposed to close when you die? That's what happened on TV, in the movies. People exhaled and closed their eyes, turning their faces away. Mag... died with her eyes open, in a sense. She never closed them again. Shilo eased herself to standing and leaned over, peered into the dead man's eyes. They stared back, but they might as well have been glass for all the human depth she found within. She couldn't tell if there was anything still in there. A soul, or whatever. How long did it take for the last sparkle of life to go out? Did it all go into the Zydrate?

"Kid?" an incredulous voice asked.

She shrieked and fell with her knees planted on the corpse's abdomen, and her hands fell on cold shoulders clammy with gore. She froze.

The necro-merchant sounded amused as he approached, his tall form casting a shadow over her, saying, "Now what are you doing-"

Then the siren of nearby cops blared, the trumpetting of boots striking the ground, shouts for them to stand up with their hands over their heads. "Fuck no," Graverobber growled under his breath. He shoved her aside, sending her sprawling, and extracted the blue in the blink of an eye. It was automatic by now. He grabbed her tight by the elbow and hauled her roughly to her feet.

"Run!" he said, and off they went in a manic dash, and if she stopped running he dragged her, out of harm's way, or maybe he was just taking her along for the ride. He hopskipped into an alley, threw open a dumpster lid, and impatiently gestured for her to get in. She balked.

"Gross," she said, her mouth twisted and sour. "I am not hiding in that."

"Come on, there's no time to argue."

He jumped in first and offered a hand in assistance. She looked over her shoulder fearfully before clambering up, taking his hand, and jumping in. He made sure her head was clear before closing the lid. It didn't close all the way, letting some light into the dark that drowned them.

It was shadowy, and Shilo awkwardly sprawled in his lap, facing away from him; her face was turned up, doubtlessly listening for shouts, sirens, anything. She made terror appealing, the way her mouth dropped open and her huge, dark eyes kept blinking. After a minute, she still hadn't calmed any, and the way she was backed up against him, he could feel her shaking. What he couldn't tell was exactly how much (or how little) she was wearing, but he could feel the heat from her bare legs, one between his, one crooked over his right leg. She'd have become even more frightened if she could see his wolfish grin, and he dropped his hand from the dumpster roof to the side of her leg, fingertips brushing the fabric of her skirt, pushing it up. Her thigh was smooth and warm to the touch, and he grumbled when she jumped, twisting to stare at him. Damn his cold hands.

"What are you doing?" she mumbled.

"Whoops," he said with an unapologetic smirk. "You could move if you're uncomfortable."

She shook her head and whispered what he already knew, that there was just no room, and there were needles in the trash. If she moved from on top of him, she'd have to crouch in garbage.

"I'm shocked to be so used," he said, faking offense.

"You'll protect me from cops, Amber Sweet, and the rain, but it's too much work to be my cushion?"

"To be fair..." He swept dark hair behind her ear, looking into her eyes. "You aren't making this easy on me."

She started to talk, but he shushed her, pointing up. Her mouth snapped shut and she nodded grimly, settling back against him more comfortably-which was uncomfortable for him, but it did free him up to experiment a bit more, and she wouldn't even talk. No guilt tripping or painful explanations or carefully constructed lies.

He was just deciding which terrain to explore - he thought he'd start at her shoulders, maybe ease the sleeves off, and make his way down to her wrists - when she whispered, "Were you going to kiss me?"

His hands froze and stilled in mid-air, and he could have growled with annoyance. "What's that?"

"At my house, on the stairs...?"

"No," he said simply. Kissing had been very low on the list of things to cross his mind when it came to her and what he wanted to do to her. "Why? Did you want me to?"

He put one of his big hands on her shoulder, sliding it up to her throat, fingers tiptoing delicately along her skin.

"I don't..."

"Tell me to stop, kid," he murmured, his head inclining, painted mouth perilously close to the skin of her neck. He could imagine her spastic heartbeat hammering against her chest. "and I will."

"Why don't I hear anything?" she choked out.

His other hand had found the soft place on the back of her knee, the thumb circling, and he stopped reluctantly and admitted, "... Because they went the other way five minutes ago."

She made a noise of frustration and stood, pushing hard on the lid of the dumpster, swinging herself out.

"Hey, wait a second!" he protested, popping his head and torso out.

"I hate you!" she yelled.

He got out of the dumpster and picked a banana peel off his coat. "What did I do?" he demanded calmly.

"Ugh!" She stomped her feet, stormed up, and shoved him back, his body hitting the dumpster.

"Go ahead, I like it rough," he drawled. "Are you perchance angry because you felt something in there?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I did." He beamed. "I felt your big, dirty hands grabbing me!"

"Don't be melodramatic," he scolded. "I caressed, savored, or petted. I never grab."

She picked up a bit of trash, chucked it at him with a howl, and ran off. He shrugged and pulled an apple out of his pocket, ripped into it with his teeth. Juicy!  
  


* * *

  
It wasn't until he started to go through the dumpster that he found the little girl's bag. It had slipped from her grasp, it seemed, or she desperately wanted to see him again. That devious minx! He looked through it and found a grocery list.

He waited a day to give her a chance to cool off, then slipped through the gate and knocked on her door. Footsteps shuffled up.

"Who is it?" she asked.

"It's me. Open up."

"How did you get through the gate?"

"I'm slippery. Let me in."

"Why should I?"

"I brought you a present."

She opened the door slightly, peering through the crack with suspicion. He held her bag aloft, jiggled it to show it was full, and she stepped back to let him in. He pushed the door wide open and strolled in. It was late, and she looked to have just gotten out of bed, a frilly, pale pink nightie on her body and striped red-and-pink socks up to her thighs. She looked like a piece of candy, and it was hard not to outright lick his lips.

He handed her the bag. She took it, glanced in, and walked toward a room which turned out to be the kitchen. "You brought me groceries?"

"You left money," he said, as if that explained it.

She took things out one by one, and seemed unfamiliar with her own kitchen. He stayed back, watching her figure it out on her own. Her list had involved a lot of cookies and milk and soda. He'd added in regular people food. TV dinners, fruit, a pizza. Finally every cupboard and appliance was stocked and closed.

"Thank you," she said, rubbing at her eyes.

He bowed his head graciously.

Her voice tinged with sleepy bewilderment: "But... this couldn't have waited until morning?"

"Absolutely not." A quick glance informed him that he could see little black panties through the pink cloth, but why point it out? He focused elsewhere.

"I'm going to sleep," she said dazedly. "Goodnight. Thank you, but goodnight."

"Should I give you a kiss goodnight?" he teased darkly.

She looked up through eyes ringed with black and grey shadows. "On the cheek," she amended softly and shyly.

He grinned and very quickly closed the distance between them, maintaining enough personal distance so she wouldn't get scared and duck away. He didn't put a hand on her, didn't leer or lick her. It was only a peck. Her puffy cheek was warm, and she smelled clean. Clean as in medical, antiseptic and rubbing alcohol. He pulled away, smirking but not saying a word about the black print he'd left on her.

"Bye," she said. But she had smiled.

She walked him to the door, and he heard it lock behind him as he went out the gate the way he came in. He could be patient.

 


	6. Just Say Boo

"I'm sure we can come to an agreement," a pink-haired, red-lipped Z addict simpered. She tugged on Graverobber's belt, her mouth stuck out stupidly.

He rolled his eyes and brushed the offending hand away. "You're hardly Amber Sweet," he pointed out.

"My parts all work!"

"Dizzy told me what you gave her. Let me know when that clears up and we'll talk." He waved his hand to shoo her.

"I want my fucking Z," she snarled.

He was done with talking to her and bored, looking over the top of her head. A familiar sight was walking by the alley with determination. She didn't stop, her bag over one shoulder and a rolled up paper held tightly in her hand.

"This is your lucky day," he said to the pissed off addict. "For one night only, I offer a way for you to earn your next hit of Z, a prize to be claimed at a later date. All you have to do is scare that little girl-" He pointed. "-down my alley."

"Do I even want to know? You fucking children?"

He paused to smile, as if to say, "Sure, why not." "It won't be hard to do. Act menacing."

"You're sick in the brain. GeneCo's having a discount, you should get a new, not-fucked up one," the addict said, but went to do as she was told.

That remark was uncalled for. It wasn't even his brain that was the problem.

"I'm sorry, I have somewhere to be," Wallace's voice piped up.

"Come on, help a bitch out," the addict said. "Are those your real...eyes?"

Graverobber sat atop a dumpster and checked his teeth in a knife's reflection, chomped twice. Chomp chomp.

All the while, she was backing up, back into view of the alley. "What?" she squeaked.

"BOO!"

Accompanied by a lunge toward her and that was all it took; Shilo shrieked and ran into the alley, pressing her body against the brick, her eyes covered with one arm. Didn't she know that peekaboo only works with babies? The addict smirked at Graverobber, waggled her finger in mock disapproval, and vanished from sight. Oh, yeah, she had to notice the kid was hot. Little Shilo was catching her breath. No alerts from her monitor. Oh, she wasn't wearing one. Good for her!

"Evening!" he greeted. She froze and moved her arm, turning her head to take him in, boots to haystack hair.

"You again," she said, resigned. At least the surprise and disbelief wasn't something he had to work past. (Because a propensity for running to her room when scared and an aversion to physical contact were _such_ better obstacles.)

He beckoned her closer. "What's in your hand?"

She put her hands behind her back. He shrugged and put a hand on her shoulder, quickly turning her so he could grab the paper. She spun and jumped, reaching for it, protesting; he held it over her head, juuuust out of reach, as he read, smiling at her annoyance.

She calmed down - no other choice, he was too tall - and explained, "It's an application to petition against live organ reposessions. I wrote it up on Dad's typewriter."

"That's real noble, kid, but it'll never get anywhere. No one will touch it."

"What? Why?"

"Money and blood makes the world go 'round and 'round on its twisted axes. GeneCo will live on. And, hmm, a piece of paper full of names of those who oppose the Largos?" He rolled up the paper and offered it to her generously.

"I guess that is a bad idea," she admitted sheepishly. She took the paper back and stowed it in her bag. "I'd be putting those people in danger?"

He shook his head. "They'd be putting themselves in danger. You'd be helping."

Her frown was troubled, brow furrowed. He chucked her under the chin, tilted her face up, and smiled at her.

"Don't," she said, pushing his hand away.

"I won't." She folded her arms over her stomach like she was going to fly apart in the middle. He forced himself to slow down and wasn't entirely sure if his concern over her anxiety was feigned. "So which kid am I talking to? The one who let me say goodnight like a gentleman or the one who threw a tantrum because I did some harmless petting?"

"Even if I don't hate you, it doesn't mean I want you to touch me," she said, stumbling over her words.

"Don't you?" he said wickedly.

She looked up at him, puzzled.

He sighed. "Never mind." He looked into the dumpster and pulled out a salad in a plastic leftovers container, tossed it to her. She missed and picked it up.

"This was in the trash," she said, wrinkling her nose.

"It was wrapped! Besides, it's the closest you're ever getting to having me take you to dinner. Got it?"

She picked a piece of gooey cheese off the lid, wiped the greasy plastic off on her bag, and tucked it in. "Thanks. But I don't want you to take care of me."

He stroked his chin as he pondered. "Allow me to pose you a question: What do you want?"

Hesitantly, "To change the world. Make it better."

That was what her dad wanted for her. Not to stay safe, or get a degree... he wanted her to take on worldwide corruption. "Yes, of course. But that might take a while. In the meantime?" She looked at him blankly and he thought the question might be too general. He tried again, gently pressing, "When I said goodnight?"

"When you kissed me?"

He scoffed. "That wasn't a kiss."

"...No?"

He pushed off the dumpster to look down at her from his standing height. "Decidedly not."

She looked at his boots. They were very big boots. "Graverobber, why do you keep showing up? I don't need a new protector."

"Don't worry, the last think I want is to replace your dad." She seemed to realize how close they were and took a few steps back. Really? If he wanted to molest her, he'd had ample opportunity. "You're the one who keeps appearing in need of rescue," he said.

"That's not my fault! Dad never taught me how to-"

"How to fight back? How to say no?" He grinned. "Perhaps I'm making you uncomfortable."

"Yeah, you are," she said stiffly.

"My apologies. Want to fuck?" Her eyes widened. "You heard me."

"N-no," she whimpered. "I mean, yes, I heard you. Stay away from me, okay?" She was backing up, holding her hand in front of her like a shield.

He smiled in what he hoped was a friendly, unmenacing way at her as she looked once over her shoulder, then turned and dashed in the other direction. It was very late, after all, for little girls to be out alone.  
  


* * *

  
Dizzy's enthusiastic moans were drowning out the blaring sounds emanating from the TV. She had her eyes closed tight, but the new eyelids were white as milk and translucent, so he could see her eyeballs rolling around in the sockets.

She liked to creep people out with her modifications - in a really sexy way. Got her teeth sharpened, skin dyed so she glowed green under night lights, had hooks put in her sides along with a decorative zipper that went from her neck to just above the crotch. The zipper scratched his skin if she got too close, so she was careful to just lock her legs around him and keep the rest of her body off.

Wait. Was that...? On the TV...?

Normally, he was good about being attentive, especially with Dizzy, in social intercourse or otherwise. She was one of his friends, and he liked having her around too much to piss her off with something as simple as forgetting his manners. He didn't think she'd mind if his attention wandered just this once.

"Hey, do me a favor and shut up," Graverobber said, digging his fingers deeper into her hips until she laughed (nerve alteration meant what should have been pain instead registered as tickling) and shut her mouth, biting below her lip. No good. Her head was still in the way. He tickled her ribs and she threw her torso to the side to get away from his tickling hands.

On the screen, a very young girl walked out of GeneCo Towers, opening the door and looking astonished at the crowd waiting for her. She tried to cover her face from the cameras popping and flashing all around her as she ran to the limo waiting for her. He hadn't seen her in a while. Weeks. It was fucking surreal, to say the least, seeing her again on not-quite-live TV. The footage, which had been live earlier in the day, played a second time, zooming in and freezing on her little, pale face under the wide-brimmed, black hat. She looked a proper lady, with gloves and a cocktail dress, but her face ruined the effect. The kid was hopelessly...

He pulled Dizzy against him hard and she cooed in surprise.

"I wasn't ready," she said, not angrily, not chiding him, simply stating a fact. He grinned and patted her cheek.

"Sorry," he returned, but they'd both moved on to the next thing. It took a moment to buckle his pants, and then he was watching TV, and she was straightening herself up. He turned up the volume, patting the place on the couch beside him.

Okay, so it was her couch. She picked her panties off the floor and stepped into them, smoothing her dress back down over her legs to swish in slices against her calves. But she didn't join him on the couch, walking instead toward the kitchen. He nudged an endtable in front of him so he could put his feet up.

A reporter wearing entirely too much make-up was providing commentary, after which the show would cut to a panel discussing the exciting non-events of that day. He spoke quick and fast, spitting out each word. "Not much has been seen of Shilo Wallace since last month's opera, when she famously refused Rotti Largo's generous offer of leaving her GeneCo in its entirety. But this morning she was seen being escorted into GeneCo Towers and leaving again a few hours later. As we all know, thanks to the efforts of Amber Sweet-"

Mute. He dropped the remote. Dizzy plopped beside him on the couch and offered him a cold, fizzy drink in a red and sweating bottle. They clinked their bottles together, smiling at each other, and drank.

 


	7. Reporter Infestation

"As we all know, thanks to the efforts of Amber Sweet, Shilo, the daughter of Nathan Wallace, one of Rotti Largo's close friends, has been able to live in her family home tax free. Whether the events of today will change that remains to be seen."

She'd watched herself on the news for hours. Nothing else was playing on any of the channels, and she shut off the TV, going to the window and peeking out cautiously. Flashes in the dark. Reporters clamored outside like chatty ants, a veritable swarm. She was effectively stuck in the house. Again. She shut the curtains in annoyance, missing her privacy. She wanted to make a change, like Dad told her to, but that meant she was losing her anonymity, her peace and quiet.

At least the bugs were still the same. Her friends: the odd, trapped, and spindly creatures she related to so well. She went to her desk and looked at each container with a fond smile. Seeing them stirred memories... Daddy bringing bugs home buzzing in jars, watching with unease as she took away their oxygen and carefully arranged their bodies with tiny pins. Now she understood why. He feared her morbid hobby meant she'd inherited his zeal for delivering pain and death with a careful hand.

Gross. She collected bugs, not organs.

It had taken her a long time to get used to her new reality. The opera had changed everything. She learned her own house, room by room - including her dad's sick playroom. She'd touched each instrument with cold reflection, saw how the tiles were permanently darkened a rusty red. It would have been impossible to reconcile the monster, the man who sliced and snipped, the man who made her sick, with the father if not for the fact that his love for her was all around her, everywhere she turned in that empty house.

If Mom was more obviously haunting the halls with her aloof smile, Dad was there in the hidden details. The care he'd put into making the home a comforting, soft place for her. She pored over photographs of them together, Daddy with his arm around a somber little girl, went into his room and looked through his journals, letters to patients, pieces of his old life. He wasn't a good person, but she couldn't hate him. He was her father. He'd failed her, but at least he'd tried.

So many nights were spent crying, wondering why she ever wanted to go outside, why she ever longed to be free. She'd never cried much, and suddenly she was overwhelmed with the weight of all the tragedy in the world, forcing tears. Her life, her dad's.

It wasn't all darkness. For instance, she had cupcakes in the oven right now. For all the press knew, that's what she'd been doing at GeneCo: borrowing a cup of sugar. Why not?

She laid back on the bed with a laugh, touching the pale blue curtains that had replaced the plastic sheets. Without the meds to dull her senses, touching was a treat. She ran her hands down the front of her shirt, relishing the feel of the fabric. It was silky and cool pinched between her fingers, but stuck uncomfortably to her skin- an impulse buy that she couldn't bring herself to throw out. She moved her hands through the sheets, the new, plush comforter.

A loud banging noise from downstairs made her sit up with a guilty start (why? she wasn't _doing_ anything) and jump down off her bed, rushing downstairs, her hand skimming along the banister. There was something pounding on the fireplace, which was shut. She bit her lip and shifted her balance from foot to foot in indecision. Who knew about the crypt entrance?

No one.

"Mom?" she said, half joking.

"Not really," a deep and familiar voice grumbled. Her belly did what she could only describe as a quivery flop, and she couldn't make herself respond.

He showed up now? He'd taken her at her word to leave her alone, and she'd... okay, she'd missed him. She'd started to count on his odd appearances to throw her routines off balance. Of course he'd show up now, with the middle of the night coming soon, being disruptive and invasive. And harmless.

He was harmless, she told herself. She unlatched the fireplace, and he'd apparently been pushing on it harder than either of them expected, because he stumbled forward a few steps, bumped into her, and crashed down heavily on her legs. She flailed, which did nothing to stop her from falling. Her back hit the floor and... there was Graverobber, who had caught himself by his hands, which were at Shilo's sides. He was leaning over her, head over her chest, and once he'd oriented himself, he grinned devilishly at her.

"Well, isn't this cozy?" he said.

She looked into his eyes solemnly. "Help me up," she said quietly.

His expression lost that teasing cast, and he got to his feet, offering a hand. She ignored the dirt and grasped it. He hauled her to her feet easily.

"Hey, kid," he greeted amiably. She smiled and surprised them both by suddenly throwing her arms around his midsection in a hug. He put an arm around her, and she could've sworn she felt him smiling down at her. "Nice to see you, too."

Yeah, she'd definitely missed him. She pulled back, and he immediately dropped his arm to his side. "You, uh, kind of scared me," she said. That had to be fear that she felt, increasing exponentially when he'd dropped onto her waist, that shaky feeling that made her feel light-headed and weird... Right?

"That's, uh, kind of the point," he said.

The timer went off. He followed her into the kitchen, watching amusedly as she first tried to grab the tray of cupcakes out of the oven with her bare hands, belatedly reminding her that she shouldn't. She'd only burned her fingertips, luckily. She used a big glove that she couldn't imagine either of her parents using to again open the oven door and pull out the tray, setting it in the fridge to cool. The cupcakes were puffy, perfect domes, and a rich chocolate. Her eyes lit up at the thought of gobbling up the whole tray. Graverobber could have one and that was it, the rest were hers.

When she took the glove off, she found that her fingertips were bright pink and sore.

"Run them under water," the tall man advised. She looked at him suspiciously and he raised his eyebrows.

It actually helped, the cold numbing and soothing the raw skin. She shut off the water and dried her hands on her pants, turned to face him. He looked like he was trying hard to refrain from saying something. "What?"

He relented with a sigh. "Do you want me to kiss it better?"

"... Yeah, okay." She held out one hand, which he took delicately by the wrist, bringing it up to his mouth. He brushed his lips across the knuckles, his bright blue eyes never breaking from her doleful stare.

She hadn't noticed before... she'd been in shock, or maybe it was the meds dulling her senses, but he was really sexy. She'd known it, obviously, but she hadn't felt it. She took her hand back a little too quickly and hoped he hadn't noticed.

"You seem to have a reporter infestation," he said casually.

"Yeah. Oh, that's why you used the other entrance!" she realized. He nodded, and she griped, "I'm stuck in the house."

He grinned and her brow furrowed. He knew something she didn't, something he found really obvious. "You could pop out the way I came in. I could take you somewhere else to sleep."

It wasn't possible that she'd be able to sleep with all the bright lights and noises of the media outside her gate. She agreed. "Stay here," she warned him. "I'm going to my room for a few things."

"No, I'm sure there's nothing of interest to me in your bedroom," he teased. She giggled and went upstairs to pack an overnight bag.

In her room, she quickly threw a nightie and a stuffed bear into her bag. Toothbrush from the bathroom. She glanced at herself in the mirror and adjusted her wig, made sure it was secure on her scalp.

"That took a while," he complained when she finally appeared at the foot of the stairs. He was poised to leave, one foot in the house and one foot on the passageway.

"It did not!" He smirked. Oh, he'd been kidding. "Where are we going?"

Instead of answering, he grabbed her hand and ran into the dark tunnel.

 


	8. A Dizzying Night

Graverobber halted suddenly. "This way, kid!" he said, pointing with his free hand to a house sheltered between two defunct garbage trucks. They were underground, but there was a conspicuous lack of bodies, so far as Shilo could tell.

She was nervous. Tried not to be, but this was definitely new. She was going to be alone in a tiny house with this person who was the closest thing she had to a friend aside from the bugs. She withdrew her hand from his. He looked over his shoulder at her, shrugged, and strolled up to the house. He rapped on the door.

A woman with a jolt of blue-and-blonde hair opened the door. She was frightening: white eyelids, a smile made of sharp fangs, and sewn into her body were bolts, zippers, and hooks. Shilo gasped and clutched Graverobber's arm, clinging to his side with her face pressed against him, her eyes closed tight.

Graverobber rolled his eyes. "She's a little shy," he explained. Dizzy nodded, but her expression was troubled. "Kid, it's okay. Take it easy. This is Dizzy."

"Hey, cutie," she greeted the scared girl.

He could feel her take one quick deep breath after another, collecting herself. He extricated himself and she straightened up, looking all manner of embarrassed. Thankfully, Dizzy's concerned look had vanished.

"I'm Shilo. Sorry."

The fangs grinned. "Are you kidding? That was the best reaction I've ever had. Golly, Shilo!"

Dizzy laughed and went into the house, carelessly flicking off the porch light.

"Um, so it's okay if I sleep here?" Shilo called quietly.

"Duh," Graverobber mumbled, pushing her gently over the threshold. She still hesitated, and he put a hand on her shoulder. "It's fine, kid. I won't even leave until you feel safe."

That was good enough for her, it seemed; she gave him enough room to step into the house and shut the door behind them.

The house was tiny. The top of Graverobber's head occasionally touched the ceiling when he rocked back and forth on his heels like he was doing now. Dizzy was pulling blankets and a pillow out of a cabinet.

"I can sleep on the couch," Shilo offered.

The woman shot a sidelong glance at Graverobber and he smirked, whistled a few notes.

"That's not the greatest idea," she said.

"Yeah, and don't you want some privacy?" he asked, turning to her. "Sleep in a comfy bed..."

Dizzy put her hands over her ears and protested, "Stop, stop! I am exhausted!" She tossed the bedding on the couch. "I'm going to take a bath. Knock if you need anything. Or ask him, he knows his way around." She pushed open the bathroom door and went in.

"I do," he said, leering at the girl. "With all her hardware, she won't be out for hours."

She gulped.

 

A scuffling sound was coming from the bedroom. What was she doing in there, he wondered.

He opened the door a crack and peeked in. She was sitting on the bed, buttoning her nightgown up the back, her boots unbuckled. She kicked each foot and the boots clattered to the floor. He stopped watching, closed the door, and went to watch some TV. Dizzy was still in the tub, splashing about with her new gear. Her patches of skin all had to be removed and cleaned. Such a needless hassle.

When he ventured back, the light in the bedroom was dimmed but not off. He went in. Shilo was curled up on her side under the tartan blanket, one arm at her side and the other under her pillow. He noted her neatly arranged hair, her breaths that were a little too even. Nah, she wasn't sleeping. He sat on the bed, his added weight shifting the mattress. It creaked.

Her mouth twitched.

He chuckled low in his throat. "I know you're awake, kid."

Her eyes opened immediately. He put a hand on her hip and flexed his fingers.

"That's creepy," she complained.

"It's what I do."

"You're also good at getting people ready for surgery," she added.

His hand stopped moving and he regarded her quite seriously. "What trouble are you getting caught up in with GeneCo?"

She sat up then, and backed up against the corner of the bed, her back to the wall, so their hips wouldn't bump. "There's no trouble."

"Oh, really?" He moved closer, and she did a huge intake of breath. He ignored her, moved her aside and reached under the pillow for whatever she'd hidden there when he popped in.

A copy of Rotti's will? Bemused, he whipped out his monocle and looked it over. Shilo was crowded into a tight space by his back. She leaned against him, her chin on his shoulder as he read. He could feel the heat of her body through the thin fabric, the soft, thin curves of her form. It made it difficult to focus on reading, but he did his best.

"See," she said, pointing to where her name was penned. The movement forward made her breasts more obviously press against his back. The girl was distracting even when he wasn't looking at her. "That clearly establishes intent."

"I see that." In an instant, the monocle was away, and he turned, sending Shilo tumbling onto her back. He jumped on the mattress, looking down at her. "Blackmail? I didn't know you had it in you, kid."

He loomed over her, and her chest was rapidly rising and falling.

She nodded. "Will it work?"

"Who's to say? But it's fucking brilliant."

Her eyes lit up at the compliment and, encouraged, he leaned in, placing the will delicately on her belly between them. He caressed her cheek.

"Really?" she said. "You mean it?"

"Yeah. You're- It's beautiful."

She didn't move. Right now, she reminded him of that frightened, lost creature crouched in the graveyard. He traced her jaw. How innocent was she now, exactly? Was she, for instance, familiar with her own anatomy? How much of that innocence would dissipate in the months to come?

She spoke so suddenly that it looked to have surprised her that she said it at all. "Go on. I want to try."

"... What?" he growled. "Want to what, kid?"

"Kiss me."

He smirked, tapped her mouth twice with his index finger, as if shushing the notion as preposterous, and got up. "It's no fun to me this way." No good at all, if she requested it. He closed the door and left her in the near-darkness.

Dizzy was in old black scrubs, patting her hair with a fluffy towel. "She's a doll. Practically porcelain."

He smiled in response to this. "The evening calls," he said, heading for the door.

"Is this the part where you scream 'graves?'" she asked wryly.

"No, of course not. That comes later." He crossed his arms and leaned on the open door. "If I do recall, you were vocal enough earlier. It's rare to meet a person who rivals my lungs. You should consider a career in graverobbing."

"You inspired me," she said saucily. "And I could never dream of competing with your talent."

"Never!" He waved and darted out the door. It swung shut behind him.

Dizzy sat in the dark. Sighed once. "It's Shilo, right?"

She'd been huddled in the dark hallway, hidden. She stood up, wiping her eyes with a balled fist. "Sorry."

"It's fine. You heard all that, sweetie?"

She nodded and forced a watery smile. "He, um, has sex with you?"

"Only sometimes. If my bills are heinous."

"I get that he, um..." She broke off.

And then Dizzy did what was undoubtedly the best thing for her: she said goodnight and left her alone. At least, that's what she was going to do, but Wallace looked like a kicked puppy who had been in the Lost & Found for a few hours and ... the metaphor was a bit unwieldy, but the point was that the girl had forlorn, dark eyes.

Offering no explanation, she had Shilo sit on the kitchen floor while she hung a white sheet over the edge of the table. She flicked off the light and set up a flashlight to light up the dark place. She made a C with her hand, one finger leaving a space, and wiggled it in front of the sheet. It looked like a dog yapping, and the girl giggled as the dog barked, then became a hopping lapin, then a quail with a bobbing head. She showed the girl how to connect her hands like two eyes, and Dizzy made the chatty mouth. Shilo laughed and laughed, and eventually she loosened up, sticking her tongue out and trying to look at her distorted profile. Dizzy was on the ground, her eyes burning with laughter. "Haha... woooo..."

She looked at Shilo through scrunched eyes to see what she was doing.

Shilo pulled a very serious face, then grabbed the flashlight and shone it under her chin, her face instantly clownish. Dizzy cracked up all over again. She liked this girl. She even helped fold up the sheet.

"You don't seem like other Zydrate users," Shilo said as the woman slurped down a handful of vitamins with milk.

"I'm not like them. It's the same prescription, alright, but at a reduced dose. I'm always on it. I have to manage the pain, but I'm not an addict." She chewed her lip. The fangs threatened to tear at her skin if she bit any harder. "I don't feel pain externally. You could cut me and I'd fall to the ground in hysterics, but surgery gets in deep. That doesn't make me a junkie. Understand?"

"Oh. I didn't know," she stammered.

"This is me carving out who I am," she said, and a rush of tiredness hit her.

She needed something truly sick to amaze and disturb people. At least this girl still couldn't make herself look right at her. She clicked her fangs, slid them over her tongue, and sent the girl off to bed.  
  


* * *

 

  
Shilo was alone in the house when she woke up in the late morning. She gnawed on some stale bread but wasn't hungry enough to look through the kitchen. A little investigation in the living room turned up a sizeable stack of medical journals and textbooks, which she brought back to the bedroom and looked through for the whole afternoon, searching for answers. Beyond the obvious, like what exactly is Zydrate (a compound that is stored up in dead brains), to what was wrong with her now. She had to be sick again, the way her body was fluttering around Graverobber, especially when he touched her. That couldn't be healthy. So it was that at five in the evening, still in her nightie, the bedroom door was thrown open so violently that it banged into the wall.

She sat up and belatedly threw her hands in front of her face as he chucked something at her with no warning at all. It hit her in the head and flopped onto the blanket next to her.

"Hey!" she squealed at him.

He came in, kicking the door so it shut with a click. His eyes roamed over her body, greedy and amused and easy as he drank her in.

"Still in bed?" he mused.

She stuck her lip out, about to retort when she noticed what he'd hit her with. Naughty Night Sluts, Issue XXXV. It was a glossy, new magazine with a blonde woman on the front, her back on shiny sheets with her smock open down the middle to show a lot of her anatomy from the waist up, a barcode stamped on her right breast. Her eyes were daring and hard to look away from. Tentatively, she opened it.

This was... not a kid's book, or a tabloid, or... She turned a page, eyes widening. Her skin grew hot and prickly in seconds. Did that... hurt?

His delighted voice intruded: "You're blushing!"

Her fingers gripped the magazine, her eyes glued to the pictures. Part of it was fascination and part of it... she couldn't make herself look at Graverobber with this in her hands. Were ropes supposed to be used like that? What if the girl wanted to move? Her breaths came in anxious reverse sighs. She raised it in front of her face, peeking over to look at Graverobber. More specifically, his clothes.

She'd never thought about there being a body underneath, but there it was. He was naked under his clothes! How could that be?

She realized he had been watching her this whole time. Her gaze jumped up to meet his guiltily and he smirked. He'd caught her. Fuck, fuck! She cast about for a way to distract herself.

"This is... um... colorful," she tried. Her cheeks were burning.

"It's porn." He had wiped the smirk off his face, at least.

"You didn't have to throw it at me," she mumbled, closing it with one finger holding her place.

"Sure I did," he said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

She licked her lips. Her mouth was dry.

"What's this for?"

She spread the magazine on her lap pointedly. Something on the page distracted her for a moment. She didn't know that mouths could be used like that... but the expression on the man's face indicated that he liked it very much. A quiet tremor went through her stomach.

"I was gauging your reaction," he said evenly.

"And how would you know that, Graverobber?"

He raised an eyebrow and she shifted uncomfortably.

"I can tell it got to you. You like it. You're flustered as fuck. Hot under the collar. Need I keep going?"

She rolled up the magazine stiffly and stuck it out at him. He took it back with a slow smile that made that shaky feeling in her stomach freak out.

"Whatever."

He laughed at her attempt at dettachment. "Get dressed, kid. We're leaving."

She got to her feet. He teased to stay and watch, but she panicked and shoved him out, then sank back against the door.

Is that what he wanted from her?

 


	9. Reality Check

She stood at the water's edge, looking out at the seemingly endless ocean, and beneath the skin of glittering, dark water were bodies, piled high and pickling in the salty sea. It was an endless and awful sight. Her hair blew gently in the wind.

It had taken them a while to find a stretch of muddy shore uncrowded by corpses. She had an aversion to the dead which he couldn't understand. The dead were everywhere. If she didn't like it, she could look elsewhere.

He didn't know what he was supposed to do with her after leaving the shack. Dizzy needed a break, that was for damn sure. From what he heard, the kid had nightmares, loud ones. She'd wake up sobbing and end up wringing enough pity out of the woman for some company to distract herself from whatever was haunting her sleep. Dizzy couldn't babysit Shilo while he was away, as she had bills to pay like everyone else.

When asked, the kid claimed not to want to go home straight away. So, he thought a field trip was in order. A reality check on the state of the world. She seemed to think it was all sunshine and rainbows under the body bags and scars.

They walked there in silence, her hands in tight fists at her sides, avoiding his. He didn't mind. She was embarrassed, which was cute. Show a sheltered girl something she's been missing...

She had to have a television in her house, and unless it was a decorative set(highly unlikely), she had to have idly watched the odd program that was on in the dead of night. How had she never seen porn?

Looked like the kid had never seen where the world ended, either. She'd been standing there for several minutes, staring out at the water in shock or disbelief. It was a pretty contrast: the pale, dark-haired girl, beholding the moonlit, black sea. She looked so fragile.

He walked up and draped an arm languorously across her shoulders, drawing her body in.

"Impressive, right? Is it everything you thought?"

Her voice was flat, dead as the water. "That can't be the whole world."

"No. But it's all we'll ever see," he promised.

"I don't believe that."

He shook his head, baffled that she would even try to deny what she was seeing. It was right in front of her. What was the use in pretending?

"Really? It looks an awful lot like that's the end of the world to me, kid. We're on this rock for good."

"He'd know what's past this," she said, bitterness tinging her voice.

"What's that, kid?" he asked, but he could guess the answer.

"Rotti Largo. He said the world was out there, close enough to touch it."

It did not escape his attention that she was leaning against his chest. She might have been fleeing the cold air, certainly, but when his arm curved more securely around her, his fingers tight on her fishnet-clad arm, she turned her body further towards him.

"If it's so easy, why hasn't anyone else done it?" he asked sarcastically.

She shrugged. She turned and was cradled against him, her palm flat on his chest. His arm held her there. He was about to relax and appreciate how nice her little body felt tucked here like this, but her body spasmed rhythmically. She made a noise, the choking sounds of tearless crying. It only lasted a few tense beats before she gently pushed away.

She dug a toe into the mud and watched the water fill in and flatten it. She probably couldn't even swim, unless there was a pool hidden in her mansion. A girl almost fully grown, and she was helpless in more ways than he could count. The thought disquieted him.

Heedless of what would happen to her mostly clean clothes, she knelt in the mud and grabbed a stick in order to write her name in careful, uniform cursive: Shilo Wallace. The water washed over Shilo Wallace's name and Shilo Wallace's shoes and Shilo Wallace's knees.

She raised her hands to quickly avoid the sweep of the water and continued to scratch shapes into the earth for the cycle to repeat.

He'd let her continue to play in the mud if she wanted to. Why not? He, however, was fucking freezing, and his shoes were dirty enough without the lovely addition of scummy water. He left her to it and retreated to the concrete wall that they had slipped through from the miles of the graveyard.

She looked over her shoulder when she realized he wasn't standing right by her, where she expected him to be.

"Wait!" she yelled, and he stopped, impatient for her to catch up. She ran uphill to him. Her wet shoes slipped in the mud, but she wheeled her arms and caught herself.

She seemed devastated by seeing where the world ended with her own eyes. He'd told her that the world was broken, irreparably so, but she hadn't believed it. He'd had to show her, take her to the end of the world and make her see that precipice.

Humanity had barely survived, and it was hard to muster sympathy for her if she couldn't accept what had become an obvious truth.

Too bad, the earth is flat, your heroes and champions are dead and forgotten, and the only people still hanging around are lowlifes and scavengers craving a quote, a picture, or a piece of ass.

She caught her breath, hands on her knees. She looked up and said in disbelief, "You weren't really going to leave me?"

He waved a hand for her to go through the breach in the concrete wall before him. Ladies first. She clambered through and he sprang after her in one bound.

"You know your way back. You hardly need me to guide you home. I don't get it. What do you want, kid?"

"I was just going to ask you that." Her pale hand touched his sleeve with childishly insistent fingers. "What do you want with me?"

He raised his eyebrows, astonished at her hard, distrusting expression. The kid had mud on her clothes and a seriousness that didn't suit her in the slightest. A change was called for.

He grabbed her wrist near his arm, capturing her free one at her side just as swiftly. In an instant, he swung her forcefully so her back hit the wall, releasing her wrists to slam his hands on the concrete on either side of her head. He glowered.

"No. Say what you meant or don't talk to me at all," he told her. "Or is it too much to hope for a little fucking honesty?"

She pushed her body back against the wall, but he was very close, impossible to get away from. She looked at him stubbornly. Her voice died when she first opened her mouth to speak.

He put a hand to his ear. "Speak up."

"Fine," she choked out at last. "Do you want me to be like the women in those pictures?"

She hadn't wanted to say it, but he'd bet anything it had been on her mind all evening. He'd gotten under her skin and disturbed the pattern of her thoughts.

There was an appealing quality to that. Definitely.

His hand went back to the wall to support his weight as he leaned down, ignoring that kissable mouth and going straight to her neck. Her medical smell had been contaminated by the stale perfume of the dead.

He grazed his teeth lightly along her throat, enjoying the way she shuddered, and murmured, "No, not yet."

 

 


	10. Success

She couldn't stop shaking, with the edge of his teeth on her neck and her back to the cold concrete. He'd backed off immediately and decided they should get food. She hadn't eaten all day.

"I told you I wasn't going to buy you dinner," he said.

Her stomach growled.

According to her, it obviously didn't count as buying her dinner, because she hadn't had lunch yet. He acquiesced and they found a diner, attracted by the flickering, blue neon sign outside that read Gus's Bistro. It was out of the way and secluded enough that Graverobber felt safe to follow her in.

They sat in the diner on squeaky, cracked-red-leather barstools pulled up to the counter. Shilo was noisily slurping a mint chocolate milkshake through a straw while Graverobber watched with amusement. She'd polished off a big dinner, with his help. She'd stuttered when it came time to order. He didn't order for her, and she managed. Eventually.

The chicken sandwich ended up being a huge portion that even her rumbling stomach couldn't handle. He'd picked and nibbled off her plate, before doing so taking a moment to ask wordlessly with his expressive eyes if she minded. He poured syrup on the french fries instead of ketchup, and, to her relief, it tasted pretty good, equal measures sugar and salt, cold and hot.

He hadn't scared her earlier. He thought he had, but the truth was, she'd gotten hot and shivery with his breath on her neck, his deep voice softened in a hoarse whisper that sent odd, delicious vibrations down her body. The scrape of his teeth on her skin had lit a spark in her like Zydrate.

It was all she'd thought about since then, replaying it over and over again in her head, imagining if he'd done certain things differently.

But he thought he'd gone too far and was being careful and taking special pains to be kind and that counted for a lot from anyone, especially him.

A TV was set up in the corner of the room, where the ceiling met the borders of the walls. Right near the counter, actually, so while Graverobber watched her slurp, Shilo was watching a cartoon, her eyes glazed over in that hypnotized television stare. The cartoon was about a girl with magic, giant eyes that could burn holes in any material. It was really violent and the plot was stupid, but she couldn't stop watching. Dad always said too much TV would rot her brain.

A breaking news update switched the stage of entertainment from a technicolor animation to an actual press conference, starring Amber Amber Amber Amber Sweet (fa la la la la!) striding up to a podium with measured, clicking steps, henchgirls flanking her.

Same as this morning, Amber had purple, bobbed hair and a stubby, flat nose over heart-shaped fuschia lips. Shilo felt a pinprick of jealousy at the executive's body, the well-dressed curves that demanded Miss Sweet have everyone's total, undivided attention. The armed women on either side of her helped, too.

"Good thing we're done eating," Graverobber grumbled.

She shot him a fierce look that said "Please shut the fuck up because I really really need to know what happens."

She didn't know if he got all that, because he asked the bare-armed, aproned guy (Gus?) behind the counter to switch the damn thing off.

"No!" she yelped, leaping forward in her seat to grab the guy's arm as he reached for the remote.

Her hand was tight enough to bruise, and it seemed to amuse him, coming from her. He set the remote down and smiled to show there were no hard feelings.

Graverobber chuckled, shaking his head at her jumpiness, and she sheepishly sat back in her chair properly with her ankles crossed and hands folded in her lap.

Amber smiled for the cameras that were going wild all around her, bright lights and firecracker pops. Then. Her voice, that booming, clear, staged voice:

"My father's legacy is of tremendous importance to us all, but his time is past. As we look to the future, we must learn from our errors and move on to better things. A more forgiving world."

The reporters were her marionettes, and she controlled the strings- and their salaries. Each word was calculated, spoken with authority and grace through that glossy smile.

Amber Sweet paused thoughtfully and looked right at the camera that fed the diner TV, as if she could see Shilo watching on the other side. But that was impossible.

Shilo's nails dug into her palm.

"I don't doubt that you are here for a news on a visit the young Shilo Wallace paid to my estate this morning, but I will not betray her privacy and would ask those in the press to follow suit." Yeah, right. "It was a social call, and served as a reminder how precious the children of the world are. So, by the time you see this, an amendment will have been added to the organ reclamation law forever exempting people under the age of fifteen from all reposession actions."

Gus was drinking a beer and watching with mild disinterest; he spat the mouthful out in a fountain of bubbly beige.

The reporters went wild, jumping out of their chairs, thrusting microphones up toward her with a barrage of questions, their demanding voices churning together into a meaningless buzzing noise.

Amber pressed her lips together in a convincing smirk, but Shilo understood the malice just beneath the surface, how that mouth would contort into a frightening snarl when the cameras were gone. She still had darkening marks on her forearm from where the woman's nails bit her skin, her eyes narrowed in contempt. Her mask for the world was as efficient as Pavi's, frozen and beautiful, hiding the ugliness.

Shilo shivered, because past this analysis was the truth of what had happened.

It had worked. She couldn't believe it.

"Turn it off," she said shakily, but Amber had turned on her heel and left. Gone.

Graverobber was stunned, staring at the little girl with disbelief, and then he crowed with glee, scooped her up in a bear hug and yelled "YOU DID IT, KID! YOU ACTUALLY DID!"

He let go and she stumbled back, tried to steady herself with a hand on a barstool, but it skittered away. Her breaths took so much effort...

"Hey, kid? You okay?" he asked from miles away in concern, his face a blur of white. His voice was underwater; she could barely hear him.

The familiar clenching pains in her stomach were back to torture her, that familiar acquaintance, and the ground was rushing up to greet her, too. Strange how the pain could take her breath away. She needed her pills.

No, no pills. She tried to fight through it- It would pass, she had to fight through it, she had to! She pitched forward, caught herself, bent clutching her stomach as she failed to breath, couldn't-

"I- can't- breathe," she gasped.

"Kid!"

She choked and collapsed.  
  


* * *

  
Her old companion was back. The sickness, the heavy fog that she had to struggle through to breach the surface of her consciousness and wake up. She was in her bed, buried under the fat, white comforter that was tucked under her chin. In a bleary daze, she reached out automatically for the medicine at her bedside. It wasn't there. No figure approached producing gently fizzing water.

She came back to reality as the fog dissipated. She'd fainted and woken up in her bed, somehow. Daylight was spilling through the window. She pushed off the blanket, touched her bare feet to the floor. A deep, steady breathing reached her ears and she stiffened.

Graverobber.

A quick glance confirmed that he wasn't in bed next to her. She crept out of bed and - why was she wearing a robe? She peeked under it to see the same muddy clothes on underneath, but her clean bathrobe had been tied over. Huh.

The man was sleeping at the closed piano, face obscured by his matted hair. She halted. Okay, more like froze.

He was in her room. HE was in her ROOM!

This man could've left her there, passed out on the greasy diner floor. No, he had picked her up and carried her all the way home. Why had he done that?

Was he working for someone? (Unfreezing, one step closer) Amber? No, that didn't make sense. He couldn't stand Amber. No one was forcing him to be here.

He went out of his way for her, had done so more than once. He explained things, helped guide her while letting her find her own way.

Did he... care? (Breathe! Another step.) ... About her? (It's okay, he's really asleep. Another step.) Why else would he be here? Why else would he wait for her to wake up so he fell asleep watching over her? Why else would he put a robe over her dirty clothes before tucking her into her nice, clean bed?

He was dangerous. Erratic. Powerful.

She could barely admit it to herself for fear of what it meant, but he had this unique ability to make her shake and shiver with something other than fear. It was more like anticipation, the way her insides seized up before a shot.

His savage smirk right in her face, the icy eyes challenging her to keep up, learn, adapt, be better. And for alllllll the times he called her "kid," he didn't treat her like a child.

When he was close to her... when he touched her... the sensations were so new and completely shook her up by just how good it felt! His hand gently caressing her generated sharp, electric volts that charged her nerves. She was infected with these thoughts tumbling around in her head, every one about him.

He could be so annoying! It pissed her off. Taking her to Dizzy's was thoughtful, sort of. Fun, in a way. But he hadn't said he was sorry about any of his behavior!

And he did things with Dizzy that went totally, way way waaaay past kissing or holding hands, or ANYTHING she'd done or thought of doing. She didn't know if she wanted to. Not when he woke up, not this day, but ever?

She slid next to him on the piano bench and held her breath as she carefully moved his dreadlocks back from his face. He was... her friend, wasn't he? She furrowed her brow and leaned with an elbow on the piano to look at him.

He was relaxed in sleep, makeup worn into the uneven surface of his face and smudged where his cheek rested on his sleeve. He could've crashed somewhere else in her room where he'd be more comfortable, like the couch that was currently holding some of her stuffed animals. Nooo, he was sleeping at the piano.

He was sleeping sound, anyway. She invented a new adage: Let sleeping Graverobbers lie.  
  


* * *

  
Graverobber grumbled, glancing around the room. Yep, she was gone. So where was she?

As if on cue, he heard a high, wavering voice singing along with a radio. He ambled toward the sounds of liveliness, the source of which was in the kitchen.

The girl had been so light cradled in his arms. He'd picked her off the floor and brought her in, close to his chest, her petite body limp and vulnerable. While he'd been snoozing, she'd showered to get the dirt off (the delicious image he conjured immediately made him regret this realization) and changed into a purple tank dress that was woefully tight in all the correct locations. She had the radio turned up loud, and she was spinning around the kitchen, tossing dishes in the sudsy sink. She was singing along with a Blind Mag song.

Shilo. Gorgeous, energetic Shilo, dancing, with the morning light falling on her in a halo. She stopped once she realized he was in the doorway. He expected her to gasp and trip or fall against the counter, sending dishes down with a clatter. No, rather than do any of that, she giggled, pushed her hair behind her ear, and shut off the radio.

"I like that song," he said, pulling out a chair and lounging in it, hands behind his head. "I like the way you sing it, too."

The kitchen smelled like it had been doused in milk and sugar, like a little kid had tried baking. Sure enough, Shilo put a plate of frosted cupcakes right under his nose. He took one and licked the too-sweet frosting. Shilo put the plate down and went back to do dishes, and he watched her ass wiggling as she swayed to music that she'd shut off moments ago.

He ate the cupcake in two big, neat bites, closed his eyes. Chocolate. Culinary orgasm, rich cake and far too much sugar in the icing, but the kid obviously had a sweet tooth. He leaned, tilting the chair back.

"Graverobber?" her voice said, closer than he expected.

"Yeah, kid?"

"Thank you. For taking me home."

He opened his eyes to see her standing right beside him, her hesitant smile almost as sweet as that sugary-as-fuck icing.

"I wasn't gonna leave you."

He didn't know how to explain it, to her or himself. It would've been convenient to leave her, but... he didn't.

"Yeah, but you could've," she pointed out.

He could usually tell before something like this happened. This time, he was taken by surprise. She didn't break his gaze as she leaned, turning her head at an angle, and kissed him. Her eyes closed. She smelled like soap and sugar, and her mouth was a welcome, soft touch. He didn't make a motion to touch her or deepen the kiss. He let it stay an innocent, sweet peck, a taste of things to come.

She was quiet after pulling away, the flush burning and brightening her sallow cheeks somehow reaching her eyes.

"I wanted to do that for a while now," she said softly.

"I know," he teased.

A while for her was a few days, at most. But they'd crossed a hurdle, her first kiss and she hadn't died of shock. He held out his hand, holding back his smug grin.

He marveled at how incredibly small her hand looked clutching at his.

 


	11. Sister Bonding Time

_"And you'll be here?" she prompted for the umpteenth time._

_Rotti's driver, now hers whenever she needed, nodded. They were parked outside the GeneCo building, and she was twisting her hands in her lap, willing herself to get out of the limo._

_She re-checked her purse: emergency meds, her phone, and a stuffed folder._

_It became apparent, after a few weeks of brazen activism, that she would get exactly nowhere, even with the will of the people on her side. She would always be politically blocked by the Largos, and every honest door to change was locked and barred. If she booked a small hall to speak at, the building was mysteriously declared condemned; distributed pamphlets ended up in the gutters; petitions were declared invalid by some missing and vital key phrase._

_She wasn't entirely helpless, however._

_Rotti hadn't left her GeneCo, but the night of the opera, after delivering her safely home, the driver had handed her the folder. The deceased GeneCo owner wanted her to have ammunition to protect herself from his heirs. It was a practical gesture if nothing else, and Shilo couldn't muster up any gratitude for the man. He'd used the people she'd loved so callously, then tossed her aside when she stopped being... useful, entertaining?_

_She still didn't understand his motivations, weeks later._

_But he had delivered on his promise to help her. Money given quietly to her, information passed, the driver. She shuddered at the thought of him controlling her actions from beyond the grave. The man had orchestrated the unraveling of her dad's sanity and succeeded in turning her against him. If anyone was capable of manipulating her after dying, it was him._

_She'd hesitated too long, wringing her hands and anxiously delaying. Her driver went around and opened the door for her._

_He walked with her all the way up to the enormous double doors, which he showed her through; she proceeded alone into a grand vestibule. She looked up the ceiling and around at the lavish interior, awe-struck by her surroundings. GeneCo did not give nearly as much of their proceeds to charity as they claimed, if the Largos lived like this._

_A secretary, topless except for a ruffled collar and a string of caution tape wound tightly across her breasts, had an old-fashioned phone cradled between her shoulder and her ear as she said "Yeah, uh-huh, she will make that happen," and took quick, tidy notes. She put the phone down to frown at the visitor and snap, "No solicitors. Ever. "_

_"Actually, I'm Shilo Wallace and I'm here to see the Largos." She said it firmly, tried to act the grown-up way she was dressed._

_The woman's jaw dropped and she put the phone down on the receiver with a click. She sprang up from her booth and bustled towards an elevator. She stopped to urge the girl to hurry up and follow her._

_The elevator spun up and up at frightening speeds. She could see the world drop away from her feet, and the glass walls showed the city's lights and smog. The secretary was sweating crystals, leafing through papers on a clipboard._

_The doors opened to show an office, grand and dark. Amber was seated behind the desk, for all the world looking like a Queen on a throne, looking at the newspaper behind decorative blue spectacles._

_Pavi and Luigi looked beyond bored, rabid dogs without chewtoys._

_"What are you interrupting me with, how dare you," Amber drawled, not looking up._

_"I'm so sorry, Miss Sweet. It's Shilo Wallace," the busty woman stuttered._

_Amber forced down some dark emotion that had surfaced for a brief moment and shooed the woman away with a smile._

_"What a pleasant surprise!" she cooed, true to her namesake until the elevator descended again._

_Shilo was alone with the Largos._

_The heiress crisply smacked her paper before setting it down, placing an open palm on it as she stood. Her pink satin jacket buttoned once over a black bra, and a pencil skirt with a slit up the front encased her bony hips and willowy legs. Six inch lace-up stilettos completed the ensemble._

_In comparison, Shilo felt overdressed and awkward._

_"What's this about? Money?" Amber guessed in low, measured tones, sitting on her desk with crossed legs._

_Luigi played with his knife, the tip of it poking at his thumb. "Want me to gut her, sister?" he offered with a scowl._

_She waved her hand dismissively. "Nah." She cut her eyes at Shilo. "Talk."_

_So she did. "I want to talk about Repo."_

_"Miss your daddy?" Amber sneered._

_Shilo lifted her chin, not letting herself react._

_"Repossessions are going to stop. Or I'll go to the press."_

_Pavi popped his face into view from where he reclined on the antique couch with his mirror._

_"Cameras love the Pavi!" he crooned._

_"Pavi, shut the fuck up!" Amber and Luigi yelled in discordant unison._

_He smiled and tilted his head. His face was decayed, yellowing, but Shilo knew that sweet red mouth, that finely lined skin, and most of all the spidery, dark eyelashes. It was the face featured in posters in her bedroom._

_There was nothing she could do, short of diving over the back of the couch and ripping out the metal snaps. It was tempting. Her hands curled into fists and she swallowed her sudden rage._

_Amber's eyes twinkled with amusement, not believing that Shilo could have any power over her._

_"What would you go to the press with?"_

_Shilo withdrew the folder from her purse. She strode to the desk and tossed the folder on it, files spilling out._

_Rotti's (unsigned) final will, photos of the Largo children at their weakest moments. Luigi the murderer, Pavi skinning faces from unconscious women, Amber passed out in an alley, high on Street Z._

_Amber said simperingly, "Obviously doctored."_

_"He showed the will on stage! I can claim he was about to sign it," she said hotly._

_"Nice try."_

_Shilo stepped closer and spoke softly, for Amber's ears alone._

_"You miss your dad, don't you. I can see it. You get to cry over him. They wouldn't get it," she said, nodding her head at the brothers. "how girls are with their dads. I... want to miss mine, but there's a problem."_

_It caught the woman off guard. Her mouth loosened from its fixed grin._

_"I don't know if Nathan was my dad. Rotti wanted to leave me everything, and in his last hours he spent time with me, talked to me... It's kind of weird that he wouldn't consider his own kids above a total stranger," she said slowly, as if it had just occurred to her, as if she didn't know that each word she spoke opened a new scar in Amber Sweet until she snapped, her hand flying up to grab Shilo's arm._

_Long sharp nails stabbed her painfully, and all trace of honey in her voice was gone as she screeched "You ungrateful cunt!"_

_The heiress's pretty new mouth was disfigured by rage, and her eyes were narrowed, merciless and hateful. The nails went deeper as she twisted the skin._

_Marni's daughter couldn't help but whimper, but she didn't dare look away. Appearing more brave than defiant was crucial. It would turn Amber into the whiny brat and make Shilo seem powerful and collected._

_The heiress snarled, "You're lucky I didn't order you DEAD, brat! My father was too kind. Everything you have is because of him."_

_"He could have been my father, too," she challenged. "He said it himself."_

_"Don't you dare," Amber snarled._

_Shilo smiled. Oh, she so would. "We could let a blood test decide. That way it'd be official. The media would eat up that drama. A love triangle's thrilling conclusion. Think of the headline: Whose lovechild is Shilo Wallace? Could she be the fourth heir?"_

_The woman put her face close, teeth gritted. Her perfume was chokingly strong._

_"Never," she hissed._

_"You want your empire? Fine. You can have it!" The pain in her arm lessened, and she shook Amber's hand off. "But we're going to talk about repossessions. Right now."_

_Amber looked away and shook her head, smiling. "Fuck. You could be a Largo."_  
  


* * *

  
Where was he? She excused herself to wash dishes, and when the kitchen was close enough to clean, he was gone.

She looked everywhere; she even checked under her bed, but he wasn't around. He'd vanished.

One kiss had been enough to send him running for the gutters. She'd been that repulsive. Being forward was a mistake. Showing she liked him and wanted him had been a huge mistake. Damn it! Frustrated, she threw the stuffed animals off the furniture by the handful and peered behind a couch. She didn't put it past the man to hide there and watch her sleep.

Graverobber tapped her on the shoulder.

"Hey, I gotta get going," he said.

He stepped back, giving her room to straighten up. She faced him, more than a little embarrassed. "I thought you left!"

He smiled sheepishly. "Oh. Well, I did."

"... What? You did?"

"But! I came back to say bye and that I'll see you later."

He didn't seem to be mocking her, and he had actually turned around and come back. That took something. That took _guts_ for him to come back and take the time to tell her goodbye properly. With words and everything.

Before she could overthink it, she asked "Um, where are you going?"

"Dizzy needs me." She stared at him. He laughed and added, "No, I mean her daily dose of Zydrate."

"Can I go with you?" she ventured hesitantly.

"... I guess, kid," he said strangely, leaning back on one leg and crossing his arms.

He was caught off guard by her innocent request and it showed. It was a weird feeling, that she'd surprised him, for once, so she let him go ahead and boss her when he added that she should take any meds still in the house with her.  
  


* * *

  
Dizzy opened the door, her arm blocking their way in. "Where. Have. You. Been?" she snarled at Graverobber. Her jaw was tight with pain.

"It's my fault," Shilo said, stepping in front of Graverobber protectively. He looked down at her in surprise. "He had to take care of me."

"Him? He's the most unqualified man alive to take care of _you_ ," the woman replied, but Shilo's action had cooled her ire considerably. She showed them into the living room and got the teenager a soda. "Nice sunny day out there?" she said brightly, wincing as she lowered her body to the couch.

"Are you okay?" the girl asked, worried.

"She needs her medicine. You don't like this part, kid," Graverobber reminded her.

He thought she couldn't take it. She mumbled that she was fine and sat cross-legged on the floor. She was disturbed by the soda's fizzing, but forced herself to sip it. She hiccuped and the bubbles burned her nose. The bubbles were a result of carbonation, which did nothing for the flavor; so far as she could tell, it tasted like sugar and a little bit of water. It probably wasn't poison. She hoped not.

Graverobber smiled at her insisting to stay in the room. "Suit yourself." He raised one of Dizzy's legs and put the Zydrate gun against her patchwork skin.

To Shilo, it was like witnessing a private, intimate act: the way his fingers curled around the calf, the exposed thigh and that his gun was higher against Dizzy's anatomy than Shilo wanted it to be. She didn't want to look away and show that she cared- that she was scared, so she settled for covering her face with her hands, peeking through her fingers.

"Hey, just- damn it, use my wrist," Dizzy snapped, moving her leg down, flat against the cushion.

He took her wrist. The needle moved... the gun went off, a mild pop. She didn't pass out. It almost energized her, gave her new color. She rubbed her wrist and her smile would have been comforting if not for the fangs.

Shilo lowered her hands, let out the breath she'd been holding, and stood up. She set the soda down on a table. "I, um, the bathroom's through there?" she asked, pointing.

Dizzy nodded, amused. "Yeah, chickpea, go right ahead."

When the girl was safely out of range, Graverobber flounced onto the couch. "I always shoot your anatomy," he said, running a hand up her leg and stopping at her thigh. "Right here."

"That's not true and you know it," she laughed. "Graverobber, what is she doing here? Another sleepover?"

"I didn't think you'd mind," he said, reclining.

"No, I like seeing her, don't mark me wrong. But you didn't answer my question."

He sighed and shoved a hand in his pocket, turning his head to the side to stare at her. Ah, these moments of unexpected truths. He had no one else to tell, and best to get it all on the table. "Hell, I don't know, Dizz. I think I'm fucked. She's... unenhanced. She's unpracticed. She's a kid! ... I'm doomed."

That rush, that understanding. Shilo had never been cut on. She had no interest in surgery or Zydrate, and her mannerisms, the shyness, every thing that he'd never seen fascinated and appealed to him. He dealt with death and sex and drugs, his only company the bodies littering the graveyards and scalpel sluts. She was new, and in a world of people pieced together from the dead scraps, she was alive. He didn't say any of this. He'd said enough.

She smirked. "How were you taking care of her?"

"Nothing bad. We were out and she swooned dead away. I carried her home and waited for her to wake up. Lost track of time." He wanted to mention the fact that she'd kissed him but couldn't think of how to do so in a conversational way.

"Fainted? Is she not well?"

He rolled his eyes. "She owns more drugs than a pharmacy and she's been poisoned all her life. No, Dizzy, I'd say she's a tad unwell. It's part of why I brought her here, so you could ask her a few questions, take a look at what she's taking."

She nodded. "Sure." Then, slyly, "And the other reason you brought her?"

He admitted, "She asked to go with me. She was so damn cute about it."

Dizzy grinned from ear to ear. Is that what he looked like when he smiled? It was unnerving, like a crocodile. "Well, isn't that something."

"What?" he grumbled.

"She likes you!"

He scoffed.

"She does. Not the way she likes shadow puppets- long story," she said in reaction to his befuddled face. "Try not to do anything to mess it up. She's been locked up. Take it slow."

"Fine," he said, exasperated. "I won't fuck her and I won't fuck you in front of her, thanks for the advice." He forced himself to smile and not sound sarcastic.

"Happy to help," she said, pleased.  
  


* * *

  
"Hello in there? Sweetie, could we talk?" There was a knock on the bathroom door. "It's been an hour. Are you okay?"

The door opened. Shilo was sitting in the empty tub with her knees drawn up to her chest, holding her bag. She wanted to take a bath, sink into warm water and nice-smelling froth, but it was the middle of the day, and she didn't know this person well enough to be naked in her house. She'd gone through the room, found Dizzy's plastic ducklings, and lined them up on the floor.

"If you were having alone time... I didn't want to interrupt," she said.

"We were talking about you, actually. Could I ask you a few things?" She was very... businesslike.

"I guess so."

"I'm told you fainted? Could you tell me about that?" She pulled a stethoscope out of her shirt pocket and Shilo flinched involuntarily at the sight. "Sit up?"

She sat forward. Dizzy pushed the back of Shilo's shirt up, no funny stuff, and put the cold metal to her back, listened. "Deep breath. Good, okay, another big breath."

"I got startled and passed out. I guess it's a side effect of the meds."

"The meds your dad had you on?"

She grimaced. "I stopped taking it, but it didn't go away completely. The fainting had stopped; other than that..."

Dizzy listened to her heart at the front, then folded up the stethoscope and put it away, to Shilo's relief.

"You were poisoned your whole life. It's in your system for who knows how long. I wouldn't expect normalcy. Can I take a look at your medicine?"

Shilo emptied her bag: a bug jar, book, and bottles and bottles and bottles and bottles of pills.

"Huh." That was all Dizzy had to say as she picked each container up and read the label. "This was keeping you alive. He had you on enough tranquilizers to take out a rhino. Never," she said firmly, picking out three bottles. "take these. This is just to dope you. You'll see a change in energy in several weeks." She trashed them.

"Is, um," Shilo started. "Is this why I don't grow taller? Is this why I'm bald?"

She wanted so much for Dizzy not to pity her. The woman propped her arm on the tub and leaned against her hand, staring intently at the ceiling. "No. That shit's been in your system for years. I wouldn't expect physical change at this late stage. The best you can do is adjust your meds and maintain the symptoms that have become permanent."

She hadn't expected good news, but still a part of her mind shut down at this confirmation and she felt so helpless. So useless. "That's great," she said bitterly. "How- how do you know all this?"

"I worked for Geneco." Shilo's jaw dropped. "I know. I don't look the part. Long and short of it is that being a surGEN pays great, but I prefer the research end of things to the actual practitioning. I quit."

"What do you do out here?" she asked.

"I dissect the dead. Form new compounds of Zydrate-hybrids. What I get from Graverobber is my own prescription. My own invention."

Shilo tried to connect the gross statement with the helpful, colorful, bizarre person on the other side of the tub. It wouldn't fit. Dizzy cut people open to make drugs for... herself? To sell? To piss off Geneco?

"Are you allowed to do that?"

She shrugged. "No one would bother with me out here. I'm in the middle of nowhere."

 


	12. Unsupervised

The doctor put on her dark scrubs and bid adieu to her guests, heading to an isolated shed behind the house where she conducted her macabre dissections and experiments.

Shilo smiled shyly at Graverobber, as coquettishly as her naivety allowed, and wandered outside. He cursed himself for getting trapped so easily and followed her to the porch. She kicked at a patch of weeds.

"Hey, I've got an idea," he said, pointing at one of the trucks.

She grinned and yelled, "I WANT TO DRIVE!" and took off running.

Shilo got there and stopped short. She wasn't tall enough to get up to the door on her own. She pleaded at him for help, pleeeease, and he opened the driver's side door for her, then picked her up by the waist and lifted her so her feet could touch the floor. She grabbed the steering wheel and swung her body all the way onto the tall seat. He shut the door, went around to the other side, and got in.

She spun the wheel and tested the horn, switched the windshield wipers on and off. Finally, she crossed her arms over the wheel and put her head down, smiling at him.

"So?" he said. "Good idea?"

"This was a great idea," she agreed. "I like the view."

They were very high up. They could see the underground stretching out, more garage than graveyard; a graveyard for vehicles.

Then again, she could be talking about him. She was staring at him, and when he raised his eyebrows to let her know she wasn't being subtle about checking out the living scenery, she looked away with a bashful grin.

Damn it, kid. She had to be herself. If she were a puzzle piece of synthetic parts and bits of the dead, he'd know exactly how to deal with her. He could treat her with derision, get inside her head and into her bed and leave, his curiosity satisfied. But then she had to go and do something cute, reminding him that she was real and that she really cared. About him, of all the unlikely things.

"Thanks for taking me with you," she said softly.

"Kid, you don't have to thank me. If you bothered me, I'd've let you know by now and left you at home."

She scooted across the seat, a nervous, jittery smile playing across her lips. "Are you saying you like having me around?"

"I have to spell it out? Obviously, I-" Then his voice cut off suddenly and he twitched because her hand had gone up to his chest, touching the hair that poked out of his shirt, caressing the skin beneath.

"You're fluffy," she said, curling her fingers.

She scooted closer, and her leg brushed his. He gazed down at her with amusement and a hunger he couldn't hope to disguise as anything else. She had no idea what her wandering touch could do.

"Yeah," he managed. "That feels pretty damn nice."

"It feels good when you touch me," she said. "so I wanted to see what it was like. To touch you. Where else do you like to be touched? Where else should I?"

He closed his eyes, stifling the images that splashed across his horrible mind... her delicate, black-nailed fingers wrapping around him...

She had no idea what she was saying, what she was suggesting.

"Graverobber?"

She put a hand on his knee and craned her head toward him, all curious big-eyed innocence, and her hand was right fucking there. He cast his thoughts about for a way to stop his body from reacting short of chucking her out of the truck.

"Stop," he said tersely.

"Stop what?"

"You can't _do_ that."

"This?" She moved her hand up an inch and the temperature shot up in the cab about twenty degrees.

"I told you." He glared. "You don't know what you're doing, so... cut it out."

Dizzy wanted him to take it slow? He was taking it slow.

"I thought you wanted to kiss me. Isn't... isn't that why we're in here?" she asked expectantly.

Oh! Face turned up, hand on his leg so she can support her weight leaning in for a kiss. Duh. She wanted him to kiss her. She wanted romance. He couldn't help but be disappointed that she didn't have other things in mind.

"That's not a comfortable position for either of us, kid. Come here." He patted his lap and she crawled across the middle of the seat and then she was actually sitting on his lap like he was Santa Claus. Her legs went straight across and bent down to hang over the seat, her boots kicking at him a little. "What brought this on?" he purred.

She shrugged and touched his shirt collar. Her hand went back to playing with his chest hair, nails scratching at his skin, tugging delicately on the hairs. He stiffened, in more ways than just his back tightening against the seat.

She pulled back. "What's that?"

"Nothing, it's... nothing, go back to what you were doing."

A shift closer on his lap that made him shudder and she kissed his cheek, nuzzled him. "Is that right?"

"Yeah," he breathed. "Stop a second, would you?" She did, puzzled. He rubbed her arm and tried to think of how to word it so her feelings wouldn't be hurt or some shit. "I don't want to do something you're not ready for."

She looked at him like he was being stupid. "It's a kiss, Graverobber."

She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him.

He brought his hands to the small of her back and pressed her closer, his tongue slipping out to touch at her closed lips.

She broke away. "Bleh." She wiped her mouth off on her sleeve. "You licked me!"

"Yeah, so...? Open your mouth."

"But tongues are slimy!" She made a face, wrinkling her nose.

"You'll like it."

He caught her mouth again and she giggled, but complied, just enough so he could push his tongue forward, and she tasted somehow better than anybody's mouth ever had, warm and sweet. He kissed her hungrily, and her body was tight against his, her hands gripping the back of his shoulders, and he was so intent on this feeling of a girl, warm and young and alive in his arms, that he didn't notice her pushing him away until her head jerked back violently, and he was left with his tongue hanging out, a stupid, lazy, lascivious heavy-lidded expression stuck on his face.

"Too much," she mumbled, backing up. "Definitely, definitely too much. Sorry."

He nodded. He was definitely going to need some alone time after this. Fuck, he was hard for her.

"Okay. Fine."  
  


* * *

  
The documentary was a boring, historical piece on the origins of synthetic organ technology. It was one of those shows everyone and their neighbor had seen, frequently re-run on rainy days, to the point where it was meaningless background noise. But he didn't mind.

It was nice, sitting on the couch with his arm around Shilo, and he would've been comfortable staying like that. Evidently, the teenager had other ideas. She shut off the TV and waited for something to happen. The stillness stretched out awkwardly; she'd said it was too much, so he was not going to drag her down on the couch and fondle her until she begged for mercy. Nope.

It surprised him, therefore, when she moved and straddled his lap. She scooted forward. Her eyes were peering at him as she carefully placed a kiss high on his cheek, just under his eye, then at the corner of his mouth, then gently, fleetingly, on his mouth. Each kiss a slow process of leaning in, her eyes open like she was afraid she'd miss her target, then a firm touch lingering on his skin. He touched her hair and felt a bit in awe at the softness of her lips, the obvious hesitance and painful shyness in her movements. She had no reason to be shy. It took him completely off guard.

"Kid," he said, catching her jaw in one hand. "Close your eyes."

"Huh?"

"Close your eyes," he growled. She did.

He drew close and kissed her, nibbled on her lower lip.

She pressed her hands against his chest, leaned into the kiss with a happy sigh, her mouth a little open.

He pulled back. "Thought it was too much?" he asked, not wanting another teasing session that he'd have to conclude on his own.

She nodded, eyes still closed. "It was. I had to get used to the idea, you know? It felt good, it was just really new, so I freaked out. And now I want to practice. With you."

He hesitated and she moved closer, her arms going around his neck. "You could turn the TV back on if you want. Or you could show me how to kiss you. Graverobber, it's all I've been thinking about since it happened."

He groaned and crushed his lips to hers. She didn't have the hang of the tongue concept quite yet, but he attempted to show her. And what better way to learn than by doing?

He didn't want to stop, but he made himself ask hurriedly, "You- unh- sure?"

She answered by scooting back to lean against the armrest and pressing the toe of her boots into his chest. He grinned and unzipped them, starting up at her knees and winding down to her ankles, unwrapping the glossy leather from her legs like it was Christmas and she was the best present he could ask for; his eyes were that bright. When he'd discarded her boots, he tugged off her thigh high tights, tossing them aside casually. He kissed her knee and she shivered deliciously, leaning her head back.

"Now, how far can I take this?" he mused, his hand deftly gliding up the inside of her leg.

Her eyes tracked his movements curiously, but she didn't stop him. She bolted upright as he reached under the hem of her dress, alarmed.

"What are you doing?"

His fingers scraped her inner thigh lightly, and she jerked forward, grabbing the sides of the couch with a gasp.

"Sensitive," he chuckled, repeating the action.

"Wait, wait, what are you doing?" she insisted.

He stared, dumbfounded. "... You haven't done this?"

"Done what?"

He cursed under his breath. This was unbelievable. A seventeen year old with nothing to do, effectively trapped in her room, and it had never occurred to her to rub one out? What manner of mad world was this? Not to mention that a few of his choice fantasies were ruined now. Damn it, Shilo.

"First," he said. "you are an attractive little creature."

"I am?"

He rubbed her knee thoughtfully. "Extraordinarily so."

She smiled sweetly.

"What's the second thing?" she prompted.

"Second, you are about as ignorant as they come."

"Hey! What do you mean?"

"Sometimes, people touch themselves. People, not including you, evidently."

He contented himself with pulling her down by her ankles so he could plant kisses on her legs, licking spirals onto her kneecaps. She giggled and kicked her feet in a way that wasn't meant to discourage him.

"I do touch myself!" she exclaimed. "I touch my clothes, and my face, and my stomach-"

" _Not_ the same thing." He lifted his head from her bent leg, incredulous. Was she kidding? She couldn't be that sheltered. "Is this the same," he inquired, rubbing an open palm on her belly, "as this?" He dropped it drastically lower, pressed slightly. She squirmed.

"Oh, that's not- I never did that."

"Do you want me to?" he offered.

"Um, no," she said quickly, gingerly removing his hand and sitting up. Her cheeks were turning redder by the second.

He let the idea marinate for a while as he grinned at an almost-as-delightful idea.

"Or... I could talk you though it."

"Isn't that a little personal?"

She had a point. Barely. And the last thing he wanted was for her to be uncomfortable. He dropped it, with regret, and turned the TV back on, handing her the remote.

She channel surfed and settled on a sitcom. Not halfway through, she turned to him and said haltingly, "Um, h-how do I... you know..." He smirked and waited for her to finish. He'd piqued her curiosity, so this conclusion was inevitable. "You could tell me how, I guess."

"It was a bad idea, kid, forget I said anything."

She tugged on his sleeve, frowning. "Why?"

He smiled. "It's a pretty personal act, like you said. I was half kidding when I asked."

"But I'm not kidding," she retorted. "I want to know, so can you tell me?"

He laughed. "Sure I could, but I'm not sure I could take watching you like that."

"You don't have to watch. I don't think I could take you watching me, either." But for entirely different reasons, he was certain. She stood up. "We're alone in this whole house. You could talk to me through a door."

That hadn't occurred to him. "Why, so I could!"

And that was how he ended up dragging a chair over so he could sit on the other side of the bathroom door. He doubted this would piss Dizzy off. Anyway, it wasn't his fault. Shilo had started it. He was just going along with it, making little improvements here and there. She wanted to practice kissing; he added open mouths and tongue. She wanted experience... She'd been amenable to his perfectly innocent suggestion. Nothing untoward about this. Nope.  
  


* * *

  
Shilo was oddly giddy, shut in the bathroom.

Obviously, she had an impulse control problem. Years of being locked up could be to blame, or possibly hormones. First, she got in a limo with Rotti Largo(okay, so she was forced, but she was about to get in the limo on her own), and now this. Or she could be rebelling against her dad's ghost, breaking his rules in a truly bizarre fashion. What was wrong with her? Why was she so eager?

She was moving slowly, as if cutting through a fog. She wanted to draw out this moment for as long as she could, because there was no way that the experience could be as good as the anticipation building up inside.

"You've really never done this before? I find that hard to believe."

"There was one time. I don't know if it counts."

"Oh? Do tell!"

She spoke at the closed door, hugging her arms. "One time, Dad barged into my room and caught me squeezing a pillow between my legs. He was furious. He told me it was bad and made me promise not to do it again."

"How old were you? Six, seven?"

"Try thirteen."

Suffice it to say she'd listened to him. He was her sole human contact, so she had to believe him when it came to what was normal behavior. Death fixation was encouraged, but he freaked out if she showed any signs of outgrowing a child's purity. So she'd stayed a child. She scowled and slumped with her back to the door.

"Can you give me something other than my dad to think about, please?" she snapped.

A low chuckle. "Okay... Imagine it's me."

A shiver shot straight through her, and she didn't want to wait another second. Hurriedly, she slipped her thumbs in the waistband of her underwear and guided them down her hips and off at her ankles. She could picture it vividly: his painted lips uncharacteristically serious as he cornered her against the door, pinning her wrists over her head with one hand and caressing her cheek with the other. He would press close, his hand moving down-

"Um," she said, the fantasy abruptly cutting off.

There was a limit to her imagination and, after all, she didn't really know what was supposed to happen next. She understood what was technically the next step, but she couldn't picture it, and without him in the room with her to show her, or demonstrate on her- but that was _not_ happening.

"I'm here," he said.

"What do I do?"

"Move your hand up your leg like I was doing. All the way up. Slow."

She twitched. He was wasting time, stalling so he wouldn't have to tell her. He didn't know what he was talking about after all.

"No, really, how do I do this?"

"Do it. Inside of your leg." She hesitated, and he persisted, "I'm moving my hand up your leg..."

He hypnotized her. She ran her fingertips gently up and down the inside of her legs and accidentally tickled herself. More seriously this time, she tried again, smooth strokes, closing her eyes and thinking of his clever hands and the man attached to them, the brightness in his eyes when he was touching her. She brushed high enough to where she could feel her skin heat up.

"Okay," she said nervously.

He'd explained some of it to her before getting up from the couch: how to do it, how it would feel. But he told her that hearing about it wasn't at all like trying it. Even the most clinical description had sounded utterly erotic coming from him.

"One finger, like I told you," he instructed her.

She blushed, a heat that rippled from the hot, wet place between her legs where her fingers were poised, out to her chest, up her neck, radiating at her cheeks. Even her eyes burned. There was a tremor that she'd either never felt or ignored very well. Her whole body vibrated with anticipation, and she inhaled.

She pushed one finger slowly in, under her skin, wincing. Not comfortable or pleasant in the least. It pinched on the inside, and she made an audible pained sound.

"It's okay, kid." His voice, reassuring but somehow patronizing, made her ignore the pain and the tight, unfamiliar feeling of.. herself and instead notice how it felt to have her wrist clamped in place by her thighs, the minute but intense spark of pleasure that flickered as she moved her hand.

"Are you... alright?" Was he delighted or concerned? She needed his voice, low, close, intimate.

"Keep- keep talking to me, Graves," she said, unable just then to get his full name out. Concentrating on getting out more than two syllables at a time was proving hugely difficult, with how she was holding her breath.

"Graves," he said, trying it. "I like that. What should I talk about, and why am I talking? Does my voice do it for you? Do I?"

"Yes," she admitted in a rush. "Please, anything..."

"Shilo," he said, drawing her name out. Her heels scrabbled against the tile as she pushed back against herself, testing the nerves that screamed for contact. She bit her lip and whimpered, wordlessly begged for him to continue. "Are you hot for me? Hmmm? Oh, I can't _wait_ to find out."

The images! His tongue snaking up her leg as he gave her kiss after shiver-inducing kiss, his fingers expertly exploring her, more smoothly than she knew how, and she moved against the pressure granted by her hand right there.

A violent shudder made her head hit the door and her body shake.

"More," she said, trying not to outright beg.

She was sure he had crouched by the door to murmur at the level of her head, "Fuck, you're beautiful. Shilo... you're more beautiful than anyone I've ever seen."

She stilled her movements, eyes squeezed shut. She wanted his breath on her neck and his body close. "Even Amber Sw-"

"Especially her. And I want _you_."

With a series of pants, she rocked against her hand, brought herself there, to an explosion of sensations, wave after increasing wave of shattering, splintering shakes, places in her body that had wound up tightly coming loose all at once, and she rested her head against the door sighing as the last of it went away. She was out of breath and trembling. She straightened out her legs, tired and astonished and flushed.

"Oh my God," she said under her breath.

He knocked. "Kid?"

She didn't think he could really call her that anymore.

"I'm okay," she answered.

"Yeah, I know that. Are you going to be out soon?"

"Why?" She glanced shakily at the door.

"I just listened to you have your first orgasm. Why do you _think_?"

 


	13. Carnival

He avoided her for the next week, and life went on. He worked both jobs as per usual, only showing up to drug Dizzy when he was sure the kid would be asleep. Dizzy told him that Shilo's nightmares hadn't gone away. She thought the girl had been raped by Repo Man. He dismissed the idea without serious consideration. Her abuse had been psychological in nature. That was all.

She was still going through Daddy withdrawal. He had to give her space or she'd just come to rely on him.

He left things for her to find in the mornings: a journal and pen, a scarf, a lacy red ribbon. Nothing big, but he wanted to show he hadn't forgotten about her. It would've been tempting to leave these things at the foot of her (Dizzy's!) bed and see the sleeping cutie, to wake her up and give her kisses with his gifts, but he needed to not see her, too. He was getting too close, too fast.

Shilo didn't want to go home. Dizzy was sort of like Dad: precise, methodical, pristine. Dizzy fussed over the girl's medicine, experimenting with the prescription, trying to find a combination that she could live with. She also seemed to understand her on an emotion level as much as a medical one. She left her alone to sort out her thoughts for the most part, what with her long hours of disgusting dissection during the daylight. This left Shilo hours alone to fill with scribbling in journal, catching moths, watching TV, and avoiding the outside world. She wanted to pretend she was in a bubble, and when it popped, things would go back to normal: she'd be home, protected, and ignorant.

Reality was overwhelming, and that week was a welcome respite. She knew it was there, that this was a temporary break only.

It was terrifying to think of reform happening because of her. If the news turned on, she changed the channel. If Dizzy was reading the paper, she looked away.

What if people's lives were changing because of her? What if they weren't? What if Amber had gone back on her word and she'd have to start all over?

She missed her dad.

She missed Graverobber.

He showed up one afternoon in the kitchen, unannounced. His hair was messily tied half back, and there were more colors and textures in his outfit than a toddler's arts and crafts box.

"If it isn't my two favorite females!" He tipped an imaginary hat.

She set down her juice so carelessly that it sloshed onto the newspaper. She jumped up and hugged him tightly. Under the worn leather, he smelled like mud, trash, and several days' worth of mingled sweat. She nestled her head against his chest, feeling like the weirdest person in the world for missing this.

"I missed you," she mumbled, hoping it was soft enough that Dizzy wouldn't hear. "Like, a lot."

"Thanks, Shilo." He smoothed her back in slow, even circles. "You can let go now."

Shilo let go and sat back down, mopping up the spill of orange juice on the printed pages with a napkin.

Dizzy got him a thermos of coffee. "Are you taking her away?"

"I am, as a matter of fact!" He took a few steps forward and put a hand on Shilo's shoulder; she perked up.

"Where're we going?" she asked.

"It's a secret!" He winked.

"Before you go, honeybunch, can I get some blood samples?" Dizzy asked Shilo. She winced but nodded. Dizzy was looking for her cure. It couldn't be impossible, and if anyone could find a way, she would.

A few vials of blood later, Shilo felt oddly mismatched in one of Dizzy's white button-downs, cinched at the waist by the scarf Graverobber had gifted to her, and a black, poofy skirt beneath it. She waited by the door for him to re-emerge from wherever he'd popped off to.

She didn't recognize him at first. His hair was pulled back off his face. The white makeup and dark lipstick had been washed off, but he wasn't plain-faced by any means. He was bronzed, with burgundy so dark it ranged on black lining his cheekbones. His eyes were ringed with a healthy amount of eyeliner, and the eyelids were a metallic copper. His clothes were different, too: black trousers, a grey shirt with a red victorian jacket over it, each pocket sure to hold something interesting. Even with the obvious wear in the buttons and the faded colors, he looked- what was the word?

Debonair.

"What's with your face?" Dizzy asked.

Shilo could only stare.

He grinned. "We're going out in the daylight hours, among the general population, and I am a wanted man."

She couldn't argue with that.

He produced a gas mask and held it out to her. "The air quality's dreadful today."

She placed it over her face and he stepped behind her to help snap it in place. She worried he would press his body against hers or touch her in some way and make her feel sexy in front of Dizzy, but he was a perfect gentleman. He tightened the straps and then stepped back to observe the effect.

"Thanks," she said, her voice distorted through the mask's filter.

"Have fun, you two!" Dizzy waved them out the door.

He didn't even look at her as they walked. She prompted him again as to where they were going, but he pretended not to hear. They didn't take their usual winding route back to the graveyard, but rode a freight elevator up to the streets.

The city looked different in the day. Adverts assaulted her vision, blocking most of the skyspace, and the people walking by were looking up, or at store windows, or anywhere but at the ground, where bugs scurried along the pavement and a bloody pair of legs stuck out of an alley.

He pulled out a pocketwatch and checked it. "We're cutting it close," he said, grabbing her hand and racing up the sidewalk.

"Cutting what close?" But her voice was drowned out in the traffic on the intersection ahead.

Cars: actual size, ancient monsters, bigger than she'd ever thought they would be judging by the dots from her window. A track cut through the middle of the road. Not a minute later, a green trolley headed up the track, forward and onward, gaining speed as it went uphill. The cars were stopped by a changing series of lights, but she didn't have much time to study the system. He dragged her onward and upward, guiding her to the step-up on the back of the streetcar.

"Grab on!"

She reached up and grabbed onto the rail, one foot barely on the steps. She dangled precariously in the air for a terrifying heartbeat, then he was supporting her, shoving her up with a friendly pat on the ass once both her feet were secure. She got up on the platform quickly to evade any further groping.

He didn't need any help up. Figures.

She leaned on the rail, watching the street rush away from them. He stood behind her, hands on the rail.

"How're you doing?"

"It's a lot to take in," she said. "Can we go inside?"

"We could, but likely as not we'd be thrown out. Technically, they expect people to buy tickets. Nothing's free."

"It's cold," she noted.

"I'll keep you warm." He wrapped an arm around her waist to press her close, still holding on to the rail with his right arm.

It wasn't a terrible way to travel, and there was less attention than with the limo.  
  


* * *

  
The big-top tent was red and gold and enormous, big enough to hold an opera-house. He let her take off the mask once they were inside, in the land of booths and games, confections and sideshows. She was hesitant of the crowds, but his hand was there if some oddity frightened her. Everything frightened her.

She wanted to get her face painted, so he left her in someone else's capable, probably surgically enhanced hands for a while. He bought a pinwheel on a lark and presented it to her. She spun it and watched the colors twist with a smile. Her face was decorated with neon blue patterns, a checkerboard on one cheek and solid stripes covering both eyes, a red barcode on her lower lip. He'd have fun licking that off later.

"This is pretty," she said of the pinwheel, tucking it into her makeshift belt. It added a color and an interest to her outfit that was more like a graverobber's than her own. "You didn't have to do that."

No, he didn't. But her smile said it all. She liked that he had gone out of his way to take her somewhere fun and corpsefree. She liked that he had bought her something. And, judging by the way her jaw had dropped earlier, she liked that he was dressed a bit differently for the occasion.

He had drawn the line at washing with soap.

They proceeded on. She lost a few dollars tossing rings at bottles before he told her it was rigged; she yelled at the heavy proprietor of the crooked operation and demanded her money back. She briefly reminded Graverobber unpleasantly of Amber; he attempted to quash the thought.

Lesson learned. Failing to get a refund, she avoided the rest of the games, even the honest ones. She wanted to look at everything and everyone. She wasn't subtle about it either, gawking and making comments that made him smirk before he could tell her something about etiquette. She pointed at a hunched over, skinny fellow walking with an IV and he pushed her arm down with a quiet laugh.

"What's wrong with him?" she asked.

"I don't know, kid, a blood disease?"

She stopped and glared at him. All notions of her resembling Amber were extinct for good. It was like being on the business end of a watergun... or a machine gun brandished by an adorable bunny rabbit.

"It's not funny."

On the contrary. But he held his tongue, for fear of enraging her to new heights of cute and ineffective anger. "Sorry."

"I was sick. I _am_ sick," she corrected herself.

"Kid, I get that. But the rest of the world isn't the picture of health. The bodies on the streets aren't all the remnants of Repo Men."

She flinched, her eyes glazing over. "Why don't they go to the doctor and get cured?"

"You should know it's never that simple," he chided. "People are sick. You're healthy, compared to some. Alright?"

She nodded.  
  


* * *

  
She saw it, almost couldn't believe it. A tent was ahead, a plain and dingy red. The sign above read, "The Magnificent Marni" in sloping, rounded letters. She let go of his hand absently, and approached the tent. Marni. Marni. Mom. She pushed the flap open and found an odd contraption in the little hay-strewn square of canvas.

A big, unwieldy nickelodeon accepted coins and spat projections onto a covered screen in exchange. She'd have to stand on tiptoe and peer through the eyepiece to see the images, which were of questionable quality. She fumbled in her purse for a nickel and fed it into a slot, then pulled down an indicated lever and pressed a selection at random. The screen was small, but when she put her eyes up to the eyepiece, like opera glasses set into the panel, the rest of the world was blacked out, and the flickering countdown began.

The colorized film featured a beautiful girl, about nineteen or twenty, with dark eyes and curled hair. It was the younger self of the woman in the pictures. Her hand reached out to touch her and felt the box. She looked so real, vibrant. Alive.

Marni was an actress, smiling at the audience, at the daughter she would never meet.

"Mom," Shilo whispered, her voice cracking. "Oh my God, you're amazing."

The story was simple and wrapped up in under three minutes. The girl was kidnapped by a villain on her way to a date with another man, and tied kicking and screaming to train tracks. The bumbling hero declared his intentions to save her. He arrived on the scene just in time to watch her Houdini out of the ropes, whistle for the oncoming train to stop for her, and ride off into the sunset without either man, blowing kisses to the camera.

Shilo was riveted and eagerly paid to view the next clip, an excerpt from a concert. Marni on stage, in front of an adoring audience, in a dress as inky blue as the night sky, her hair and gloves and clothes sparkling with delicate crystals that caught the light. She was joyful, singing in that wonderful, rich voice, the high notes tearing into Shilo's heart with their intensity. It seared.

No wonder everyone loved her. Shilo touched where her necklace was, hidden under her shirt. The clip ended with Rotti joining her on stage to take her hand and praise her. They kissed, and Marni was radiant.

Shilo's stomach twisted. She'd loved him. That's why she was glowing, not just because she was young and dressed like a caught star. At that time, she'd loved him completely, enough to almost marry him.

"Who do I belong to?" she asked the screen.

Nathan or Rotti? Both monsters, both loved by the perfect woman. Shilo was torn between them, always had been, in their minds. She'd been that prize held by Nathan, his inheritance from Marni. That didn't make her his daughter.

She backed away, frustrated. Graverobber sidled up to her, chewing on an apple dripping with caramel. It looked tasty.

"Can I have a bite?"

He graciously indulged her request, handing the stick over. He'd had his tongue in her mouth; why worry about germs at all? She bit and it was tart and sweet and sticky and sooooo good! She worked on gumming a stubbornly chewy bit of caramel.

"Do you know who your dad is?" she asked.

It occurred to her a moment after asking that it had been a really rude question, but she didn't mean it like that. She just wondered if other people didn't know who their real dads were, too.

"Yes," he replied with a smirk. "Why? Did you want to conduct an interview? 'Graverobber: The Early Years.'"

She giggled. "No, it's that, um..." She took another bite and handed it back. "I- I don't really know who my dad is. Um, was."

"Does it matter?"

"I guess it doesn't."

And, since she thought about it, it didn't. She knew Marni was her mother, but whoever her dad had been, he was dead now, buried and forgotten. There was no changing that. And for all her wishing for a semblance of her former life to return, the world wouldn't undo what had happened.

Not that she wanted it to.

She didn't want to go back to being a slave, a pawn in the feuds of broken-hearted and twisted men, both loving her for the woman she resembled, both holding her back for fear of losing Marni twice.

Graverobber offered his arm and she looped hers through it.

"What's next?" she asked.

Next, as it turned out, awaited outside of the big-top and took the shape of an enormous bicycle wheel covered with ever changing lights spiraling out from the center in designs like fireworks. It sparkled and slowly spun. There were brightly painted cars, oval things with half of it cut away, and each car housed a bench big enough for two. The cut-out portion could have a plastic window zipped down to keep out the smog while leaving the view. People rode in the ovals, going high up, then down the other side.

It looked treacherous.

"That is a ferris wheel!" he told her excitedly. "And we are going to ride it."

"But it goes so high!"

"It'll be fun."

He wheedled her into it. They each bought their own tickets and were shown into a car. The lethargic attendant put a metal bar down and away they went. Graverobber zipped up the plastic, cutting out all outside noise: crowds and machines and traffic.

She fearfully watched them get ever more distance from the ground. She did not like heights. The car bounced and she got as close to him and as far back from the bar as she could. He smiled and put an arm comfortingly around her.

"It's okay," she said to herself shakily.

It was romantic, snuggling in the moving seats with the colored lights gleaming outside. Romantic, huh. It wasn't a word she thought she'd ever, EVER associate with Graverobber, or herself.

"You ever hear of _The Highwayman_?"

"No, what's that?" She nestled her head against his shoulder, wondering if he'd drugged the apple to make her so sleepy and comfortable with him. She should be on her guard around him, especially considering that he'd disappeared for a week after that... incident.

But at that moment, she couldn't make herself give a damn.

"A robber. You're like the girl in the story: black eyes, black hair, red lips, and you're desperately infatuated with the dangerous criminal."

She started to protest at the last note, but he jumped up; she fell over onto the seat on her side, jarred.

He was too tall, and the jump to his feet made them swing wildly as he recited loudly and dramatically, "'One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, I'm after a prize to-night, but I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light; Yet, if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day, then look for me by moonlight, watch for me by moonlight, I'll come to thee by moonlight...'"

He drew close, his manic, ferocious grin conspicuously absent. "'... Though hell may bar the way.'"

Why did that get to her? She was shaking, wanting him to go on just as much as she wanted the car to stop moving and terrifying her. It seemed like he was telling her something with his words, it wasn't a random, poetic selection.

He'd leave her, sometimes: for Zydrate, to evade notice, whatever. But nothing would keep him from coming back to her, if she wanted him. And there was a subtle question in his eyes, a hunger for her approval, her agreement.

She touched his cheek, drawing him forward. He paused with his body covering hers, his lips a scant inch away. It wasn't hesitance. It was a dare. _You first, kid._

She took the bait and licked his lips, and he crushed her with the heated kiss that followed. If it wasn't completely natural, it was that she wasn't sure and still held back; or, it was that they were way off the ground and she was convinced they could, at any moment, tip forward and fall to their deaths. She loved the feel of his tongue rubbing hers, of her arms around his neck and his body subtly moving on her, no frenzied desperation but a slight tease that made her want to be out of the public view and onto a softer surface.

"Graves, stop," she burst out, and he did, right away.

They arrived at the top and the cart paused in the air, there at the wheel's pinnacle. This was definitely a world view, no comparison.

"Open it," she said, pointing at the plastic.

He did, and she leaned way over the bar to feel the air, emboldened by the kiss and the dizzying height. It rocked forward even with her light weight. He laughed, grabbed her by the hips, and pulled her onto his lap for the descent.

Someone was pointing at her as they got closer to the ground. They nudged the person next to them and she tried to read their lips, anxiety prickling at her. She sprang up off his lap as soon as they touched the ground and the bar came up.

"Let's go," she said urgently, tugging at his arm. He got to his feet lazily for probably the first time in his life. She needed his energy. She needed his bounciness to get them out of there. More people were looking at her. She was illuminated by the lights, and she wasn't wearing that mask-which, now that she thought about it, probably was meant to protect her identity as well as her weak lungs.

Oh God, oh God, these people were going to kill her. She heard murmuring. "That's that girl!" "No shit, really?" "Shilo!" "It's Shilo."

She grabbed Graverobber's hand tightly, trying to move to avoid the people that were venturing close. And then it was a crowd.

She cried, "Don't hurt me!" and hugged Graverobber around the waist, burying her face into his side.

"Let go," he coaxed gently, peeling her arms off. "Remember, they're more scared of you than you are of them."

She drew her arms in close to her chest, crouching slightly and warily watching the crowd.

A woman with stiff red hair and a toxic yellow corset to match her eyes approached. She could have been one of GeneCo's models, exotic and modified from boots to cheekbones to coloring.

"You're Shilo, right?" she said nervously, squeezing her hands together.

"Yes," she replied uncertainly, still flinching and cowering, expecting to be stabbed or shot at any moment.

"Could I get your autograph?" She produced a sketchbook and fountain pen from her bag.

"Are you serious?" the girl asked in stunned amazement.

The people in front of her weren't bad guys. Dad had always said the world was cruel, but their smiling, awed faces reflected adulation. For her. They wanted to see her. They were fans! She felt dazed and gradually let her body relax.

The woman nodded. Shilo giggled and took the sketchbook, signing shakily on the first blank page.

"Could I get a picture?" someone else asked, waving their camera.

"Oh, shit, are any of you folks with the press?" Graverobber exclaimed. He gave her hand a farewell squeeze and dashed away.

She whirled to where he wasn't.

"Come back!" she yelled in frustration.

Coward! She looked back at the throng of people, her fear striking hard now that she had to face it alone.

"You saved my brother," a balding man with a beer gut and a medical mask said. "He's thirteen."

She smiled weakly at him. "Yeah, um." It wasn't much of a response and she knew it, but she couldn't muster a better one. She touched the pinwheel for comfort. Everything was going to be okay, but just to make sure: "S-so you're not going to kill me?"

That got a big laugh, like the tracks of recorded laughter that punctuated comedy shows. She hadn't meant it to be funny, but the sound of it calmed her considerably. It didn't hurt that it made her fan club think well of her. She signed her name for those that asked, politely and stutteringly declining to sign any body parts, prosthetic or otherwise. She even posed for a couple of pictures, one where her smile was innocently vacant, and then in a rock star pose, legs in an almost-split as she jammed on an air guitar.

She was thanked, as if she had done something. There were tears in people's eyes as they said how much she meant to them, that someone like her even existed. She was befuddled. She didn't even know them. They were strangers, and they responded to her so warmly, with love and enthusiasm.

The group dwindled as the novelty of Shilo's presence wore off, until she was left talking to only a handful of people, all nice and chatty where she was tight-lipped and fumbling. She bought a pretzel and licked off the grains of salt as strangers talked to her. She was awkward and shy, but they either didn't notice or didn't give a shit.

The man with the medical mask took her hands (she forced herself not to recoil), and recounted what it had been like to see her at the opera.

"Seeing you there, all choked up and bloodied, it reminded me what being alive is. What it really is. You woke me up that night," he said, and added bitterly, "but too late for me."

It was painful to hear. She didn't want to think about people dying, or feel guilt for making people have any regrets before their expiration date. Not to mention that she'd avoided the subject of the opera for weeks.

"I'm sorry," she said. "Use what you have left. You're... you're outside. Do something."

He acted as if that was very profound. It gave her a headache if she thought about it too hard. She promised a grandmotherly figure in a wheelchair that she would stay safe and, above all, avoid Zydrate, and wandered towards the road.

She wasn't a hundred percent sure of where she was going, but seeing as her guide had fucking abandoned her in an unknown district, she'd have to... um... wander. It wasn't like she had much of a choice. It was dark and shadowy, even in the middle of the day, and she didn't like the looks of these alleys. She was creeped out, not to mention-

"Um," she said, grinding to a halt. Oh, not again. "I'm lost."

"Found you!" Graverobber's voice called out to her.

She craned her neck to look up, but that didn't make sense unless he could fly. She peered into an alley and tiptoed down it.

"Where are you?" she asked, and he rushed at her, slammed her into the crumbling brick wall behind her.

An instant of shock before she recognized him, and all the annoyance she'd felt when he left melted. He had one arm on the wall beside her and was thoroughly looking her over. She put her hands behind her back and braced one foot on the wall, pouting.

"I'm very cross with you," she lied with a frown.

"It's not like I left you. I was lying in wait," he said with a crooked grin.

"Okay." She was quiet. "Ready to step in if anything happened?"

"No, you can handle yourself." He chuckled. "It's hot. Miss Independent. Since when did that happen?"

"I don't get it. It doesn't make sense, I'm just.. a girl." Something he said caught her attention. "Did you say it's hot?"

"I'll say. So much for staying away from Zydrate," he said mockingly. One hand went to her waist, his fingers sliding under the scarf tied there. "You do know what I do for a living, don't you?"

"Steal and rob," she recited obediently, but he shushed her before she could finish it.

"That involves Zydrate, as you well know."

"I know, and _you_ know I'll never use it." That issue would never be contested. Something about having smacked a needle into her mom's skull made the drug absolutely revolting. He nodded.

"Yes, but you are fraternizing with a merchant of Z. What would your fans think?"

"It's what I think that matters, Graverobber," she said. "I happen to find it exciting."

"Exciting, hmm? And what about me? Do you want me?" he asked, plucking the pinwheel out of the fabric and hiding it in an inside pocket of his coat.

She shivered as he untied the scarf and draped it loosely around her neck. "Duh." She couldn't help it if she reacted to him. And she was reacting, her body heating up from him being close, from his hand teasingly touching everything but her skin. "I thought it was obvious."

"It is," he murmured, feeling where the shirt was tucked into her skirt.

"Sh-shoot," she said, biting her lip.

"It shouldn't surprise you that I have an interest in you." He untucked her shirt and reached under the fabric to touch her side, brush her ribs. She was blushing so much she had to be glowing. "Sexually."

"That's all it is?" she wondered.

He fell silent. His rough hand felt incredible on her skin.

"No," he decided. "You are a luscious morsel, but that's not why I'm here."

"Is it because of my, um, 'desperate infatuation?'" she teased. Her eyes closed as his touch ventured briefly to her stomach. Embarrassed curiosity rushed over her as she thought of what it would be like for him to reach higher under her shirt...

"No. You're a sweet girl." His hand moved, smoothed her shirt down. "You're genuine. That quality has value, especially to scoundrels like me."

She realized, "You like me! You don't just want to fuck me, you like me." That was a shocker. But maybe he said this to all the girls. "Are you lying to me?" she asked suspiciously.

"What? No! Yes, I want you, but I'm putting that aside, because," He looked pained, even awkward, as he said, "I do like you. And that's the truth." He breathed out a puff of air. "Shit. This is new territory."

"For me, too."

"Everything's new territory for you, kid."

"That's different. Cooking, cleaning, using a credit card... that's mechanical. I can learn that on my own. But with you, everything's a whole lot more complicated," she said in a jumbled rush.

"How's that?" He stepped away from the wall and they walked down the street together.

"You're the first person I've met who c-cares about me, um, you know, because of me. Because of who I really am. Not because I'm Marni's daughter and I look like her, or because some stranger wanted to make me his heir, or because my dad was a psycho. You like me for me."

They walked in silence, each bemused by the other's confession, and happened by a storefront featuring nearly a dozen TVs. Each screen featured a blonde, silver-eyed Amber Sweet, smirking as she spoke from a podium.

"What's she up to," Graverobber said.

"SHH!" Shilo hissed frantically.

"... and we at GeneCo are immensely proud of Shilo Wallace for her efforts in improving how this business operates. She has conducted herself as an adult, with competence and responsibility, and as such, I think it best to treat her as an equal. No special treatment, which means complete financial independence. Far be it from me to hold her back when she has so much potential." The reporters clapped politely, not loud enough to cover the uneasy muttering.

"You aren't gonna faint, are you?" Graverobber asked warily.

She shook her head. "My dad left me money."

"She can freeze your accounts."

"Well, shit." She bit her lip. "What sort of jobs are there?"

"Is stripping out of the question?" he joked hopefully. She glared at him. "No, I suppose you wouldn't be interested... Hm. Jobs that are legal and allow you to keep your clothes on are few and far between, but don't fret."

 


	14. Call Ahead Next Time

Slim pickings today. He blamed it on chicken soup. No good ever came from people eating healthy, so far as his job was concerned.

He had to settle for bodies so rotted the skulls easily crumbled under slight pressure. Two extraction attempts had been ruined this evening, especially embarrassing considering he had an audience.

Granted, this audience consisted of one scantily clad teenager, who was currently perched on tombstone as she perused the classifieds. She'd giggled both times his grip had inadvertently turned moldy craniums into rubble.

"Kid, very few people can get away with laughing at me," he growled.

"Sorry," she said distractedly.

He glanced up at her, swinging her bare legs and sucking on a pen. Her brow was furrowed as she read the fine print of each wanted ad. He'd warned her all about the dangers of fine print and she was heeding his advice.

He gave up on extracting out of the skull and switched to good ol' thigh veins. The yield wouldn't be as profitable, but it was better than nothing. With any luck, the Z wouldn't be entirely dried up.

The fabric covering the body was encrusted with dirt and tore before he put any effort into ripping it. They'd been nice pants. People threw away suits and formal dresses, along with jewelry and finely crafted watches, by shoving them underground to rot with their loved ones. What a waste. Dead was dead, and no body had ever complained or bragged to him about how they were dressed.

The needle tore through dry, waxy skin, and the extraction made a satisfying, sharp sound. Ah, yes, he was lucky, for the Zydrate glowed brilliantly. Even better, there was no trace of crystallization. It ebbed out nice and smooth, and he depressed the needle slowly, drawing out the process down to the last drop. He withdrew the needle and kicked the empty body aside. It'd be dust in no time, now that it was out in the open. Corpses didn't rot like they were meant to when piled up in heaps.

Shilo was too intent on her job hunt to be disgusted by any of this.

He turned to the next coffin. An angel's silhouette was carved into the stone lid, which he shoved off to leave the coffin ajar. Twin little boys, economically stored in one tidy container, greeted him with closed eyes and solemn, identical expressions. They weren't fresh, but new. Their youthful selves took longer to decay, and he pegged their demise at a month ago, at most. He filled the empty vials with the drug while talking to the girl behind him.

"Are you going to tell me what happened to that waitressing gig?"

"I didn't like it."

"It's a job. You aren't meant to like it."

"It was intolerable," she said. "Graverobber, what's an exotic dancer?"

"Stripper," he replied tersely, unwilling to rip his concentration from the task at hand. The needle jammed as he spoke and he smacked it with the palm of his hand. It broke through into grey and squishy brainmatter. There we go.

"Damn, that gets rid of about half of these..." She crossed out several boxes.

"Tell me, Shilo, what was so intolerable, as you put it, about this job?"

"Everything. The uniform was slutty-"

"Oh, this I have to hear. In detail." He stopped what he was doing to grin at her, prepared to fix the image of Slutty Waitress Shilo in his mind.

She hopped down and demonstrated by shaping the approximate length and tightness of the clothing with her hands as she talked.

"Okay, so tube socks, a schoolgirl skirt except about this long-" hands indicating high up her thighs, "-and the top was cut way open, with the sleeves off the shoulder."

"... Go on."

"Right, and I thought it had to be a joke, so I tied an apron around my neck and then proceeded to screw up orders, stammer at customers, and drop dishes, including an overdressed salad that landed in someone's lap."

"You dropped dishes?"

"You try running around in platform shoes!" she griped. "It sucked. I wasn't fast enough with one guy's drink, so he smacked my ass and told me to hurry it up. I spent the next two hours in the freezer having a freak out, and..."

"Aaaaand...?"

"I got fired," she grumbled.

He laughed uproariously. "After one day?"

"Yeah. Oh no. Cops!" she informed him unnecessarily.

The GENcops had been drawn to the sound of his laughter, and spotlights swept over the ground as sirens wailed. Having divested the coffin of its young wards, Graverobber slid in, laid back, and closed his eyes, affecting a dead man's calm demeanor. Shilo ducked down behind the headstone, hands over her ears.

Sometimes, he ran from cops. With Shilo around, it was easier to sit tight and wait for them to leave. He carefully crept out and, low to the ground, crawled over to where she hid. Her eyes were scrunched closed, willing the chaos and noise to vanish. That was how she reacted when there was too much noise, or if she felt there was danger. She shut down and retreated, a turtle into her shell. She had no real defense against police with guns and bright lights.

He sat next to her, nudging her shoulder so she could make room for his bulk. The newspaper was balanced on her knees, and he picked it up. She flinched as he said, making no effort to whisper, "This looks good. Office assistant."

"Shut up, shut up, oh God will you please just be quiet?" she pleaded, hands still over her ears. She turned to peer around the edge of the headstone, terrified.

He tugged on her arm so she faced him, then reached over and removed her hands from the sides of her head. She relaxed at his touch, moreso when he stroked one of her hands.

"What about this one?" He pointed at a box that she had overlooked. "Office assistant for a pharmaceutical company. I'll bet you there's little to no human interaction required!"

It dawned on him that here, behind this tombstone, they must have looked like no more than shadows, white ghosts in dark get-up.

He appreciated that this was becoming routine for her. She understood his world, had watched him operate, so to speak: extract, collect, fly from authorities, and sell to the desperate addicts.

Any special payment plans were done on the sly, when she was sleeping or preoccupied.

Not that it happened much. Shilo's odd influence extended to the scalpel sluts, as well; once it became apparent that she was around, that virginal, charitable treasure, his crowd of degenerate addicts were on their best behavior. That meant no back alley handjobs.

He wasn't entirely cut off, but his sexual activity had declined, and while it would be easy to blame her, he didn't care.

Women trading sex for Zydrate was something he'd expected when going into the business, but never been terribly enthused about. He oft needed to be coaxed into it, even by the most enticing of damsels.

Amber Sweet had to play her body against her eunuch guards (dead now, as he recalled) and grind against him before he gave in because, damn it, the woman was well carved and she felt good, outside and in.

The fact remained that his partners wanted him mainly for Zydrate. His charisma drew them in, but they came back for the glow. This girl, right beside him, wanted him. She was hot for him- not currently, given the conditions- and not because she wanted a hit of Z.

Walking home later, she gawked at graffiti on a wall.

It read "SHILO'S HEART" with an anatomically accurate image of said organ. Sprays of red showed that it was a bleeding heart, to boot.

It was becoming a movement. He'd seen assorted graffiti along those lines spring up, peppering his routes. This was the first she'd seen of it, apparently.

"Almost as famous as I am!" he joked.

"This is about me. Why is this about me?" she wondered in confusion.

"You mean something to people. Why's that shocking?"

"All I did at the opera was survive," she said darkly.

"No, you did more than that. You turned the world upside down with your refusal."

"Who would have said yes?" she asked incredulously.

"It wasn't only that you turned him down. It was the way you did it."

She didn't get it, and none of his words did any good. He surprised her by kissing her goodnight at the front door and leaving it at that.  
  


* * *

  
"Dizzy!" the girl practically sang as she burst through the front door.

"Not here," Graverobber said from the kitchen.

Her footsteps tapped to him, and when she popped into view, he grinned at her through a mouthful of spaghetti. He held a pot by the handle, a fork stuck in a veritable mountain of steaming noodles.

She grimaced. "Could you swallow?"

He chewed and gulped.

"I got my first paycheck!" she announced gleefully, waving an envelope.

The kid looked the professional working girl, and as stereotypically "normal" as he'd ever seen her. Ironed blouse devoid of ruffles, dark blue jeans. Still those same combat boots, buckled over her pants, throwing her out of balance and at odds with whatever image she was attempting to project.

He hadn't seen her for a while. He'd checked in with her initially, when she was settling in at work, to be sure the new job was acceptable and that her boss wasn't harassing her; unlikely, as the lady in charge was two classes shy of being a GENtern and was therefore inclined to be nice to small children and women. Shilo was a combination of both.

She liked the new job, which, as he'd suspected, focused very little on interpersonal skills and more on office work, redundant filing systems, and monotony. These were all things the dark-haired shut-in thrived on, evidently.

He set the pot down on the counter. "That's great! Hard work pays off, and all that jazz. What are you going to do with it?"

"I was thinking of getting a puppy, or fancy new clothes. You know, something impulsive."

"Oh, no you don't. You have to pay rent and save what's left over like the rest of us." He wagged a finger at her and playfully bopped her nose.

She giggled and stowed the envelope in her back pocket.

"Speaking of leftovers, Graves," she said sweetly, brushing his cheek with the back of her hand, "I ran all the way here, practically-"

"What energy you have!" he exclaimed.

Her glower reminded him that she probably didn't terribly appreciate being interrupted.

But what he said was true; she did have new energy. She was springy, and smiling, and there was a glint in her eyes. He'd only seen her listless and zapped, even after an invigorating run through the city.

"I'm sorry. You were saying?"

"Are you done?" she scowled.

"... Yes." He was listening. He really was.

"I worked up an appetite," she continued, huffily at first and then working her way to coyly. Her smile was downright mischievous. "Not for food."

His breath hitched, and his voice dipped an octave as he questioned, "Surely, you don't mean-"

"Dizzy's not home. I wasn't expecting you, but it's not as if you could be expecting me. Why don't we seize the moment?"

"Why, little Shilo. You're giving me an appetite," he chuckled.

Another step, and they were nearly toe to toe.

"Come on!"

And then he was reaching for air, because she'd skipped to the couch with a laugh. He raced after her, throwing his body down next to her. She scooted closer to rest in his arms. They cuddled close, briefly, his face buried in her hair as they got used to the feel of each other again, before she budged over to sit on his knee.

He liked when she was breathing comfortably in his embrace, but he wanted to see where this ended up, how far she'd let him go. He rubbed the small of her back.

"It's been a while," he said. "Damn nice greeting."

She nodded eagerly and sucked on his lip, which was just about the hottest, most unexpected thing she could have realistically done.

Unrealistically, she could have ripped her blouse off and demand that he fuck her at once.

He had Shilo on his lap and he was fantasizing. What the fuck. He urged himself to stop dicking around and enjoy the moment, and make sure she enjoyed it, too.

He gathered her hair off her shoulder and kissed the skin. She sighed and he alternated dry kisses and little licks from her shoulder to her neck, and then he sucked, making her pant. He moved so she was against the side of the couch, and kissing her neck caused her to squeal and writhe under him. She twisted her arms behind his back and pressed him closer. Her knees curled up.

"I- I- like this!" she gasped.

"I can tell," he growled, nipping her throat gently.

Her fingers dug into his coat, and he grinned widely into her skin.

"Sorry," she mumbled, loosening her grip. "Was that bad?"

He pulled back, stripping off the heavy coat and dropping it to the floor.

"If you do something I don't like, I will tell you. Go with it."

"Umm." She dragged him back to her by the front of his shirt, and he kissed her, obnoxiously rolling his tongue down her lip to her chin. She giggled and broke the kiss, mumbled, "Cut it out."

"But you... taste... so good," he purred, his voice dripping with innuendo.

It was, of course, over her head.

He indulgently considered her precious, clothed body and moved his hand from her side to her breast. Natural, unpadded, and why had he never tried to touch her here before now?

She followed his movements hesitantly, biting her lip. He delicately, softly palmed her breast, his thumb tracing where he approximated her nipple to be. It wasn't meant to tease her so much as explore and test a new limit, but she sighed happily and arched her chest toward his touch.

At that point, the front door opened. Dizzy, dressed in blood-splattered scrubs, stared at them, blinking, not comprehending what she was looking at. Her eyes adjusted to the unfamiliar and sublimely awkward sight of Graverobber straddling a teenager on the couch and tenderly cupping her breast right about when Shilo realized they weren't alone and blushed three shades of red.

"No, don't mind me, it's just _my_ house," Dizzy said sourly.

Shilo covered her face with her hands and kicked Graverobber off.

"Oh my God, I'm so sorry," she said.

"Don't worry about it. I need to change. Obviously." The bedroom door opened and swung shut behind her.

Graverobber cocked an eyebrow at the girl, who was anxiously fidgeting as if she'd broken a rule and was expecting punishment.

"I should go talk to her," she started. "and, and explain."

"What for? It's not like I was fingering you," he said.

He regretted the words as soon as they slipped out of his mouth, because she immediately stood up, uncertainly glancing at the closed bedroom door.

"It's her house and she's surprised. I don't like surprises either," Shilo mumbled.

He took her by the hands, no offense taken when she shrugged away and darted through the closed door.  
  


* * *

  
Graverobber's bag had been dumped on the floor, and the woman sullied by strangers' blood was pawing unceremoniously through it.

"What are you doing?" Shilo asked, and Dizzy visibly jumped.

"Fucking- fuck, Shilo, you scared the pants off of me!" she said, hand on her chest. "I was looking for something of mine, that he took. Be a good girl and get me some clean clothes out of my dresser?"

She nodded and opened a drawer, reaching in to randomly grab a gold dress with metal spikes on the collar and belt. It was a garment a rock star would have killed for, and the woman had the oddness to make it work.

"This is awesome," Shilo said, properly awed as she set the dress on the bed.

Dizzy was already taking off her clothes, tossing the messy scrubs into the hamper. Shilo turned the other way, ignoring the urge to peek and see what all of her assorted modifications entailed under the clothes.

"Thanks, kitten."

"Did you find what you were looking for?" she asked.

The bag had been folded back up all neat and pretty and set aside.

"Yes."

"Um," the girl said awkwardly, trying to shake away the last tingly remnants of adrenaline and arousal. The fact that the mirror hanging on the door showed that there were marks on her neck did nothing to help matters. Shilo hastily rearranged her wig to cover the hickeys as Dizzy zipped up the dress. "I'm really sorry."

"For what? Your little groping session? I know he can be persuasive, I don't blame you," Dizzy fairly drawled, and Shilo felt sick to her stomach as that insidious thought was confirmed: she'd done something wrong, not just rebellious but deviant, and Graverobber was going to get blamed for it.

"I started it," she confessed. "It was my idea, not his, and I'm really, really sorry. He said you were out."

"As stated, it is my house." She lightened up with a broad grin that set lines on her face. "You look good, dearie. Why don't you sit?"

She patted the bed, and Shilo sat down, fully anticipating and dreading a lecture on why what she'd done was disgusting.

Instead, Dizzy hugged her.

Shilo had never loved a woman so much, not one who was alive, anyway.

She loved Mom and always would. But she'd never touched her, felt her warm arms secure around her, heard her voice, comforting and soft. Mag was a temporary ray of light, glimmering and then gone, and everyone had loved her, not just Shilo. Same with Mom. Dad had loved her, and she only loved the frozen smile.

Dizzy was all hers, she was pretty sure of that. The woman was a hermit, and therefore all the care she had went to Shilo, and she drank it up. She craved that. Even when Daddy was alive, he'd been - there was no denying it - cold. He'd lost his wife and, with her, all his dreams; not much affection was left in him for his daughter.

Dizzy touched Shilo's wig and examined her nails critically. The black paint was chipping off, and she set about removing the polish with a sharp smelling solution.

"I liked the black," Shilo protested.

"Don't you fret. I'll redo it, neater this time." She handled the girl's hands gently, like an expensive doll. "Why are you here? A social visit?"

"No, but I guess that's what it turned into, huh?" Shilo said sheepishly. As soon as her hands were free, she retrieved her paycheck and showed it off. "It's my first payday. I wanted to show you, and you weren't around!"

"Congratulations! You're mediocre now. Figure you'll have to pay taxes, too." The bottle of polish remover went back on her dresser and she looked down at Shilo. "It's fantastic that you have a normal life."

"I don't know if it's normal."

"More normal than mine. You're doing well for yourself."

Her nails did look improved afterwards. "The medicine changes are everything you said they would be. It's like I have new batteries."

"Oh, hon..." Dizzy crossed the floor to the bed and patted her arm. "Let me know if anything changes."

"Okay, I will." She felt guilty and embarrassed all over again, made worse by Dizzy's altruism. "I should go. I'll call ahead next time."

"That might be best." She picked up Graverobber's bag and passed it Shilo. "Give this to him, will you? I can't stand how he leaves his shit lying around."

With that, she flopped down on her bed and closed her eyes.

"Dizzy?" Shilo asked worriedly.

"I have been awake for over thirty hours. You're nice, but let me sleep." She curled to face the wall and went out like a light.

Shilo made the room dark with the flick of a switch before leaving.  
  


* * *

  
All he'd heard for twenty minutes was muffled voices. A good deal before the ten minute mark, he'd gone into his head, thinking about what routes to take that evening, how fast he'd have to run about to get eight or so hours of uninterrupted sleep.

He had to think about these things to keep from thinking about Shilo's soft, responsive anatomy. All thoughts went back to her and would continue to, because while this was Dizzy's house and she had every right to barge in, she had _barged in_ and interrupted him while he was in the middle of something.

The girl closed the bedroom door behind her gently enough to make no sound.

"She's really tired. Fell asleep."

"I see. What's that for?" he asked in reference to his satchel.

"She doesn't want you to leave your stuff around," Shilo explained to him. She handed him the bag, which he set aside. "and she didn't say 'stuff.'"

"Yeah," he agreed without listening. "Sit down."

"No, I gotta get going," she said. "It's late."

He glanced at the clock. "It's seven thirty."

"Why do you want me to stay?"

"I thought we could pick up where we left off," he said with some doubt, but she shook her head.

"Graverobber... I did want to, but she's right in the other room. That was so... um..." She fidgeted and shoved her hands in her pockets. "It's not a good idea."

He frowned. He could take the disappointment. "I understand, Shilo. I don't agree, but I get it. Embarrassed?"

"You have no idea." She quickly kissed his cheek and left before she could change her mind.

He touched his cheek thoughtfully, then walked into Dizzy's room. She sat on her bed, the lamp casting enough of a glow for her to jot down notes. She was so immersed in what she was doing that his intrusion went unnoticed. He bounced on the mattress and she snapped her notebook shut.

In the odd mix of intense dark and subtle invading light, she became haggard and thin. He had pegged her around thirty when they met, and while she was not the type who felt the need to cover up her age, if she could see herself under this harsh light, she might change her mind. She was staring at him as if she'd never seen before.

"You look like shit," he commented.

"Thanks, baby. I don't use make-up to hide the dark circles like you do," she said.

"We all have our petty obsessions. You seem worn down."

"Fuck it, Graverobber." She went to the mirror, smiling at him through the reflection, and secured her hair. She did a messy job of it; tendrils of blonde hair fell in front of her eyes. "I get enough grief from my corpses. You don't dope me enough to have that right."

"Right? We're friends!" he said in shock.

"Yeah, and I want to keep it that way. No more Z." She reached for pills on her nightstand and shook them. The Zydrate pills rattled inside. "Not from you."

"You've got to be kidding me. Why would you do this? Putting yourself back on the radar-" He stopped himself. "You know as well as I do you didn't earn all that merchandise. How many signatures did you have to forge to look the way you do?"

"Please. Don't worry. I used an alias when I got these." She took out a pill and smiled. "Look, the lettering glows. How do they do that?"

"Magic," he said.

"Graverobber, we have to talk about this Shilo situation." The pill went into her mouth and she swallowed. "We'll see how well that works... I know it ain't quick and pure."

"Okay. I don't see how it's any of your business."

"You were molesting her in my house," she said wryly. "That makes it my business, unless you're starting up a peepshow. Don't you know the media frenzy you'll cause if she ends pregnant?"

He laughed. "We aren't fucking as yet, and I'm not careless."

But he saw her point. Shilo was becoming important, and he couldn't mess that up by becoming prominent in her life. Not publically, anyway. There wasn't much danger in that, considering that they ran in different circles. He wasn't doing her reputation any harm the way he was involved now.

"Could you not do it at my house, then?"

"Since we're such good friends, I'll take it into consideration," he mocked.

"You do that."

She sat next to him on the bed and played with the corner of a blanket. Her shiny nails had been filed into sharp points and were immaculate. She wore gloves when working, to preserve the integrity of her samples as well as the condition of her manicure. For either of them, after a long, hard day of honest work, the night ended up spent with drinks and sex. It wasn't routine, but it was comfortable when conversations didn't come easy. Tonight felt like one of those nights.

"Say, Dizzy, you're a woman..."

"I am."

"And I don't have anywhere in particular I need to be-" He checked his pocketwatch. "Not for a few hours."

"Are you going somewhere with this, Graverobber?"

"We could fuck," he suggested hopefully.

"I'm tired," she sighed. "I wasn't saying that to get Shilo out of my hair. It happens to be the truth. Do the words sleep deprivation mean anything to you?"

"But..." He pouted.

"Don't touch me. I want, more than anything else, to sleep."

He left her to it and tried to convince himself that things weren't changing in an unpleasant way. It had clearly been a tough day for her, and she'd be right as rain in no time. She'd sleep a whole day, and then they'd be back to normal. Except, without giving her Zydrate, he had no reason to drop by. He passed through the living room, shouldered his bag, and went out for a night of quality time with his reliable Zydrate addicts.  
  


* * *

  
Back at her estate, Shilo set the wig down, changed into pajamas and checked her messages. Amber Sweet, inviting her to a charity luncheon. Shilo didn't want to go to some stuffy event, but it wasn't like it could be avoided. Those eerie hench girls could be sent to take her in to have a chat with Miss Sweet she didn't give a timely and specific answer.

A few months ago, Amber hated her guts and told her so. This sudden endeavor to be close to her potential sister and main competition was probably fueled more by her need to look good to the press and the general public than anything else. Shilo didn't have to work the cameras to be loved. It had just happened, without her really meaning it to. The friendliness extended only to the public arena. The one time she'd visited since the deal, Amber was as big a bitch as ever. No huge suprise there.

The call could safely be ignored until the next morning. The walk home had cleared her head and given her plenty of time to think about Graverobber. Not that she'd stopped thinking about him, or about what they'd been up to. She'd touched her chest idly before, but having his hand on her had felt soooo good. If there was going to be a repeat of that or any further behavior, she'd make sure they actually were alone. God, poor Dizzy. If Shilo had been in her shoes, she'd have been freaked out. She'd have run out the door or something as dramatic.

It was too early to sleep, but too late to go anywhere. Clubs scared her, and the same parks and plazas that seemed enchanted and green by day could be host to any number of criminals, degenerates, and thugs. She shivered and clutched her teddy bear under her arm for security on that treacherous trip through the shadowy house to the kitchen.

A microwaved glass of milk accompanied her back up the stairs. She drank it, careful not to spill as she walked, and set it down on her bedside table. She folded back the sheets and snuggled under the blankets with an entomology book.

 


	15. First Time

Shilo had never ever been sick, and two days after the opera, she'd explained that to an incredulous Graverobber.

"You'll catch cold," he'd said in what could have been construed as protectiveness were it not for the casual tone.

She'd been standing in the rain, shivering and consuming that new and delightful sensation of a thousand drops of icy water pounding at her skin, seeping through fabric to chill her bones.

"Won't you?" she'd asked in response.

"Kid, I am a badass even with snot dripping from my nostrils. I can scare people by blowing my nose."

Which made her laugh.

"I've never had a cold."

Other than her manufactured blood disease, she was perfectly healthy. A bit hormonal, perhaps, but healthy.

Which was why the sudden illness affected her the way it did.

At first, she thought she was just tired, a result of her new schedule: a flurry of social events, charity auctions, even a book signing for the latest minor diva. Not to mention that she was actually working these days, and people wore her out, in general.

No, she was actually, really sick.

She lost her appetite entirely, and had to force herself to accept soup, big mouthfuls to trick her body before she knew she'd eaten. Everything she ate felt like it was going to come back up, which had never happened before. Her insides seized up and rolled, not pain. A fever showed up and stuck around for over a week, in spite of getting more than enough sleep, in spite of choking down water, in spite of vitamin C and delirious midnight pacing in her hallway. Okay, so the midnight pacing in fevered anxiety probably wouldn't help any, but it happened on an almost nightly basis. She laid down, tried to sleep, sweated, tossed and turned, and it was horrible.

Nightmarish.

Her medicine did nothing to help, and why would it? The meds maintained her and kept the sickness inflicted on her by Nathan from doing more damage than it already had.

She took the pills by the handful, not bothering with water any longer, pills dry going down, bringing up that awful, queasy sensation all the more.

She tried to act like everything was fine. It was important to her to maintain a feeling of normalcy; hadn't she tried enough to be a normal girl before, when poison was churning through her veins? This couldn't be different.

This was just a flu.

She dragged herself to work when she had to, because she was a grown-up and she liked feeling responsible for herself. Sure, that meant she slept through the fifteen minute limo ride over, curled up on the leather seat with the driver's coat over her like a blanket. Once at her destination, she'd crawl behind a desk and sneak naps between manic bouts of actual work. It balanced out to semi-productive days, so the GENtern-to-be in charge didn't yell at her. There was a lecture or two, which she responded to with profuse apologies and promises to try harder.

It was impossible for her to pretend all the time. Constantly burning up made it difficult to focus on saving the world, or kissing up to the Largos. She got fan mail that went largely unopened, and she was lonesome.

It seemed to her that having a parent, someone who shared her blood and knew her when she was little, would be comforting in times like this. Her dad could tuck her cozily into bed and rub her back until her fevered dreams stole her away. He could forget about diagnosing her and just watch over her, loving and good. Mom was trickier to imagine, but she tried. What came to mind was a mass of dark curls framing a kind, frozen smile, and soft, white hands cooling her face.

As it was, Shilo had no choice but to take care of herself.

It wasn't easy, and without a parent to enforce rules, she sometimes did stupid things, like staying out late walking around town, or going out with Graverobber on midnight dashes around fresh graves.

He noticed the difference, of course. She couldn't hide that running had become pretty much impossible, and he had to slow down for her.

It was humiliating.

An evening of graverobbing wound down in a timely fashion, and she invited the criminal inside.

Graverobber hung his coat up and shook water out of his dreadlocks.

"You act like a stray dog," she snickered, wringing the rain out of her wig.

It would have to hang up to dry, but for now, modesty compelled her to leave it covering her scalp.

Graverobber had never seen her without it.

"I am a stray dog," he said, grinning toothily.

She smiled and leaned on the wall casually.

Standing straight without wobbling was taking serious effort, and she concentrated on his smirk.

Weird how getting sick detracted from all previous hormonal urges. Vaguely, she thought it would be sexy if he licked her, but in actuality, his proximity would just add more heat. Which would really suck.

"Is something up, Shilo?"

She shook her head and swung the birdcage door open, closed, open.

He grabbed her hand and turned it palm up, felt her skin, the pulse skipping at her wrist.

"You're burning."

"Are you saying I'm hot?" she teased.

He felt her forehead, and she whimpered. Too close, too hot.

"I'm saying you have a fever. I thought you didn't get sick?"

She shrugged one shoulder. "I'll get better."

She ducked away from the unpleasant contact and kept her distance.

"How long has this been going on?" he demanded, crossing his arms.

She knelt by the digital fireplace and switched it off, darkening the room significantly.

"I don't know. Two weeks? Three, now, I guess."

"Kid, there is a plague still loose on the population. Sustaining any illness for that long is cause for concern," he informed her.

"Oh."

It took a moment before her knees would cooperate and let her stand. Long day, even with being sent home from work early. She wobbled and held on to the mantle to balance herself.

Unexpectedly, his next words came out not in a theatrical growl or suave lyrical purr, but in his real voice. She'd only heard it when he had been tied upside down and scared out of his mind.

"Should I be worried?" he asked.

"No, I'm fine."

The real voice slipped away, covered up by that deep and practiced cadence. "Are you falling asleep, Shilo?"

She shook her head stubbornly. "I'm tired, but I'm not sleepy!"

A yawn inconveniently popped out of her mouth, and he darted forward, scooping her body up and flinging her over his shoulder, just like the battering ram corpse.

"I'm carrying you up to bed, missy!" he announced.

She giggled, but as he swung on his heel and started up the stairs, she grabbed his shirt in fistfuls and whimpered. Nausea washed over her in green waves.

"Slower?" she asked, relinquishing her grip on the fabric.

He clomped up the steps, his arm locked over her. Each step bounced her and the contents of her stomach.

When he finally set her down, she ran into the bathroom, pushed the seat up, and there wasn't time to kneel before her throat and stomach squeezed, and she hurled, again and again until everything she'd eaten in the last day or so - admittedly, not much - was purged. Her shoulders shook, and her insides felt raw.

Gross. Awful. She flushed and went to the sink, swished some water in her mouth. She'd never done that before. She'd seen it dramatized on soap operas for only one reason. Oh no. Oh no.

"Does this mean I'm pregnant?" she worried.

All those sexy thoughts about Graverobber come to fruition. The kisses, his hand on her chest.

"No, that's only in the A.M." Her eyes widened in alarm and he chuckled, "I'm kidding. Have we fucked?"

"No, one of us would've noticed," she said.

"Right. That is the only way you would end up pregnant, and there are other circumstances determining that. Everyone loses their lunch at some point."

She held her stomach and hoped she would never have to repeat that experience ever again.

"I really am sick," she said.

"Kid." Graverobber led her to her room, and peeled back the covers.

She unzipped her shoes and laid down. There was worry poorly concealed in his tight smile.

She apologized quietly.

He folded the blankets over her body and sat down.

Shilo whimpered, "Could you get Dizzy for me? Please?"

"Yeah."

He touched a kiss to her hand and departed, and the little girl was pulled into sleep.  
  


* * *

_  
"Daddy?"_

_The little girl sits by the window while Nathan listens to her heart. He's all smiles and his hair is starting to go silver at the edges. She plays with his hair and smiles at him. He gels it for work, to keep it out of the way, but it's soft. He's with her._

_This is her box: the sick room, the bed too big, the walls too blank, the skeleton in the corner inviting monsters into her dreams._

_He kisses her. "Yes, precious? What is it?"_

_"I got a bug! It came in at night," she says giddily, pushing him lightly aside._

_Exuberance overcomes her feet until they dash. She gets out an old shoebox and cracks it open so he can see the beetle skittering frantically around inside. She's neglected to put holes in the top, and he shakes his head that she's been so careless._

_"Shi, it's a living thing. It will die if you keep it caged without air." He removes the box from her possessive grip and pokes holes inside, then sets it down. "Tell me the truth. Did you open your window?"_

_She hangs her head and nods. "I had my mask on," she lies._

_He hugs her close, believing her. A little girl has no reason to tell untruths._

_"I'm outside often. Ask me if you want anything at all."_

_"I will, Daddy," she agrees, but even nine years into this low-paying gig of being his daughter, she knows her requests will be dumbed down and re-interpreted. Books get smaller, clothes get frillier, music is censored. He's turning her into something she's not. Her shelves are filled with technical books: entomology, astronomy, hematopathology. No novels to fill her head with nonsensical myths and hopeless heroism._

_Daddy wants her to stay this way, nine years old and perched by the window, waiting with bright eyes for him to come home and hold her._

_He never stays with her very long, which only makes her cling tighter. She holds on to his shirt now as his arms loosen. There's a generous blotch of red there, near the collar, and she looks up, puzzled._

_"Did someone die?" she asks._

_After a long pause, he says, "I can't save everyone, Shi."_

_"But you try."_

_"Of course. I'm a doctor, of course I help people."_

_He stands and her heart sinks, because here comes the ache of him leaving for who knows how long. Minutes of his attention stolen from his busy day, and then she's left hungry._

_The bugs she's been catching help. She catches them and puts them into boxes until their air runs out and they decompose too fast for her to appreciate the process._

_The place under her bed is a graveyard for invertebrates._

_"Um." Her squeak and he pauses at the open door. The door opens and it's as if new air rushes into the dead room, and she sucks air. He brings her life. There's a tired lining under his eyes. He doesn't sleep well. "Do we still have those orchids?"_

_He brought her a catalogue and she picked out the red and purple ones. Unless he let them die, they're still in the hallway, straining for light in the windowless corridor._

_"Yes, dear." He doesn't have to ask why; the wondering is plain on his face. He's amused, too, which gives her hope that he'll say yes._

_"Can I take one to Mom?"_

_She clasps her hands, ready to beg if she's got to._

_He sighs, and his mouth quirks in a half-smile._

_"All right, come on." He holds the door and she runs out, ready to race down the stairs, but he catches her shoulder. "Slow down, Shi. You have your limitations."_

_He pulls a knife, shiny and clean, from his pocket and helps her cut a flower to bring to the grave. It's not the first time she's taken Mommy orchids, but now they'll be fresh. They're beautiful, funereal, and there's barely any scent._

_He forgot to tell her to put her mask on. She smiles wickedly because she remembers. She should be protected, but she's not._

_He holds her hand down the steps, and through the torch-lit cave to the cold, dirty-smelling place where her mother is sleeping eternal._

_She's just resting. That's all she's doing._

_"Go ahead," he coaxes her, while holding back in the entryway._

_This place both hurts him and reaffirms his love for both Marni and Shilo._

_She walks forward and stoops to lay the flower before the grave. She kneels and scrunches her eyes up, thinking._

_Mommy suffered the same way she did, and it was Shilo's life that inevitably extinguished her mother's. She knew that._

_The blood disease had proved fatal, and Shilo is growing up motherless. Loved, but motherless. Daddy works every day to find her cure as hard as any doctor could, but she has no illusions about what lies in store for her. Eventually, she is going to die and that's not sleeping. She can't pretend otherwise. It's dead, dead, dead. It's a miracle she's lived this long._

_She hears a siren in the distance._

_The graveyard is right outside. There's nothing but more death and pain out there._

_He's the only one who can save her, from her illness, and from the evil world._

_She tells Mommy's grave she loves her and puts a hand on the stone._

_In the middle of the night, a nightmare wakes her up and she's frightened, choking on a scream. She can't get out of that bed fast enough, and she rattles on the doorknob desperately. It's locked. She's locked in with her nightmare. Panic makes her scream and she's afraid she'll stop breathing._

_"Let me out!" she wails, pounding on the door with both fists. "Daddy, let me out! I want out!" She collapses, her breaths turning into an uneven, hyperventilating mess._

_He's there in a moment, and gathers her up in his arms. "Breathe. I'm right here."_

_Her breathing's under control, no danger of a fainting spell, but the terror's there. She bawls. "I had a bad dream. My eyes didn't close, I was dead and- and- my eyes had yellow in them, like paint-"_

_"It's over. Everything's gonna be all right, Shi." He kisses her cheek._

_"It wasn't real," she says haltingly, trying to banish the demons with a shaky truth. She wants to believe her brain constructed it from nothing. It feels real. It feels like a heavy thing that won't be shaken away by reality._

_He reassures her, "There's nothing to fear from your nightmares."_

_He tries to put her back to bed, but she fights the forceful guidance, breaking into new sobs. She drags her heels and squeezes tears on his hands. He can't say no. She can't go back to sleep in this dark room._

_She doesn't remember falling asleep._

_"I want to stay with you," she begs._

_"Shilo." There's a warning in his voice. An adult tone. She wrinkles her nose. "You're too big to get in bed with me. There isn't room."_

_That's a lie. His bed is big enough to fit three people, and she barely takes up any room at all. She wonders what the real reason is._

_"Please, Daddy? I'm scared. There's shadows in my room."_

_She snuffles, because the shadows become monsters, murderers, and all the wretches he told her lurk in the cruel world._

_He relents, but adds that he's buying her a night light. This really is the last time._

_It's fine by her._

_He leads her by the hand to his room, and she's never really seen it. Not with the lights on. It makes it mysterious and cozy. He lifts her up into bed, better able to navigate in the dark than she can. He lies down on the other side._

_She cozies up to him, and he doesn't push her away._

_He's not thinking about her at all. He's thinking about Marni, and work, and how to make her not sick anymore. She's next to him and he's far away._

_"I love you, Daddy," she whispers before closing her eyes._

_"I love you, precious."_

_She'll wake up in the early morning in her lonely bed in the sick, dead room, and it doesn't matter. Right here, she's loved._   
  


* * *

  
The needle's pinch woke her up.

Shilo blinked in dazed confusion.

Dizzy's nails were pinched tightly on her arm, twisting the skin to distract her from the more obvious pain of the needle taking out her blood. It filled a vial.

"Hi," Shilo said with a meek smile.

Dizzy silently placed a circle bandaid over the red dot and made the vial of blood vanish into her blue clutch. Her choppy, blonde hair had grown out to her shoulders. She brushed it out of her eyes distractedly.

"Dizzy," the girl tried again.

"What is it," she said tersely. Shilo tried to get up, and was roughly shoved back down. "You need to rest."

Shilo couldn't believe this.

Dizzy laughed with her... didn't she? Dizzy talked to her, listened to her... didn't she?

Something had changed a while ago. This moment brought that into focus.

She was suddenly terrified that she would lose this woman after just finding her.

"I want to get a drink," Shilo said, putting a hand to her throat.

Dizzy nodded and let her get up.

The girl turned at the door, catching a glimpse of the heavily modified doctor with the vial back in hand, turning it again and again, letting the red catch the light. She contemplated the blood as if it was gorgeous and endlessly fascinating.

She realized she was being watched and put it away sullenly, her eyes locked with the girl's.

"Don't you like me any more?" Shilo asked, her voice trembling.

She was thin as she never had been, sickly and shaky on her legs. Her gut still ached from heaving. Her eyes were red and her mouth was dry. She didn't think there was anything lovable about herself in this sorry state, but she badly wanted this answer to be as she hoped.

The question forced a painful silence, and the pain of anticipated disappointment was worse than the awful waiting.

The irritation in Dizzy's posture faded. Sweetness brightened her eyes and stretched a sharp smile across her face.

"Of course I do, honey!" She crossed to where Shilo stood and hugged her tightly. "I like you. What's not to like?"

"I'm always sick," she mumbled.

"You can't help that. People like you well enough." She pulled back and brushed at Shilo's eyes as if there were tears. "There, now. Don't they?"

Her head wobbled, an imitation of a nod. "Like Graverobber."

"Exactly. He likes you, and he doesn't care about people in general. Helps with his inner turmoil if he's distant, you know," Dizzy told her.

These were things Shilo had figured out for herself, but it was nice to have someone else confirm it. Dizzy would know these things.

"Where is he?"

"He went home, wherever that is."

"A dumpster?" Shilo guessed, and the woman laughed harder than was needed. It made her uncomfortable.

"I wouldn't doubt he rolls in plenty of garbage at night," she said snidely, and there was a mean undercurrent, a second meaning that Shilo found impossible to guess at. "You aren't trash. That's a pleasant change for him, I'll bet."

She was confused. "What?"

"Oh, it's nothing, sweetpea. With all the time you spend around him, you'd think his stink would rub off on you."

"He's not so bad." She smiled. Graverobber had gone out and found Dizzy to help her. That was more than decent.

"Of course he's not. Why don't you go get your water, and then we'll talk about this flu of yours?" Dizzy suggested kindly.

Shilo grinned brightly. "Okay. That sounds great." She hesitated in the hall, wanting to say that she was glad they were friends and she loved her so much. Instead, she called over her shoulder, "Thank you!"

 


	16. Severance Package

She took her medicine in the kitchen with a glass of water and the resulting, unexpected sleep sent her rolling into deep sleep, crumpled in a heap on the kitchen floor. There were no dreams, not this time. She drifted in and out of consciousness. She felt that she was in bed. She thought, but couldn't be sure, that Graverobber was with her periodically, holding her hand, that Dizzy or Dad was shooing him and examining her, holding one of her eyelids open and shining a penlight into her pupils. But she couldn't stay awake.

"Damn it, where do you think you're going?" a muffled voice said. There was white light when she opened her eyes, and she accepted her new state of muddled delirium, let herself slip back to sleep. "Stay with me, honey. Stay with me..."

It ended. All things ended. This was different from her other fainting spells. There had been no fun hallucinations, or vivid dreams, or clarity of thought in the moments before. This had felt like being suffocated. She thought she'd died.

She asked for ice, and Dizzy put ice chips on her tongue. They melted and she swallowed greedily. "How long have I been like this?" she wondered warily, afraid of the answer. The longest she'd passed out in the past had been a few hours.

"You don't want to know."

The doctor even looked ill, her fair hair plastered to her sweat-damp and yellowed cheeks. She could use a rest. That sounded like something her dad would say, word for word. Shilo shook her head and sat up, accepting Dizzy's arm for support as she stood. "I can handle reality," she assured her friend.

"Fine," she responded crisply. "You want an answer? You were out for a week, nearly. Come on, the best medical equipment is in the basement."

Shilo stopped short, gazing up at the woman in alarm. "My dad's basement?"

"He ain't here, puddin'. Don't be shy, Shi." She chortled at her joke and pulled on the girl, tugging her easily along in spite of her reluctance and, hell, terror.

Both weak from the ordeal, one the sufferer and the other the caretaker, they passed arm in arm from the civilized section of the house into the cold domain of Repo Man.

"Take a seat," she suggested, pointing at a modified wheelchair.

The girl sat down and felt the leather bindings that were meant to secure arms with cold horror. Monster. He was a monster. He strapped people down like that and cut them up without anesthetic. He probably liked it. She'd watched the news, as a little girl, and seen Repo Man mowing people down with brutal efficiency. What was the slogan she'd heard chanted? Ninety days delinquent-

No, he was dead. He didn't do that anymore. If she pretended hard enough, he never did; he could be just her dear, dead, overbearing father.

Dizzy rifled through his abundant supplies, the jugs and cabinets, everything caked with dust and an awful sense of the evil in Repo's play room. The deaths that had happened in this room, each gruesome death that would always be a secret because dead men don't spill their guts twice, had changed and charged the air, made it choke and hitch inside. The air stank of ammonia.

"There's... a problem with your medicine," she said distractedly, her back turned. She retrieved what she needed, setting it out. "Cool it for a week, okay? You... I need to stabilize you."

"What's wrong with my medicine? You were the one who said we needed to adjust it," Shilo said. But she was relieved. She had a respite from the pills.

"You're too important to be lost," the woman muttered, almost to herself. "You've been getting worse, too f- too much. It has to stop. I don't know what to do, so we'll just halt the meds and see what happens. Or quit them altogether, if we have to." She grabbed Shilo's right hand and worked on setting up an IV. She explained that it was for nutrition, hydration. And Shilo did notice that she felt a bit weak, and her reflection in the many knives hanging up around the room showed that she, too, was worse for wear, like a ghost. "I don't know what to do," Dizzy repeated.

"You're trying. I'll get better. It's okay," Shilo said comfortingly, brushing Dizzy's hair out of her eyes. To her alarm, they were quickly filling up with tears. It scared her that the woman was expressing something other than amusement.

Dizzy, for her part, recoiled as if the touch burned her and spun about, reaching for the sink as if she was going to be sick. She croaked, "I don't know what to do anymore."

"What do you mean? What's wrong?"

"I'm having a crisis." She stared at herself in the mirror. "Have you heard of the Hippocratic Oath? It's fallen out of fashion, as it tends to clash with our current economic reliance on cutting people up when they're still conscious."

"Not really."

"First, do no harm. But what if..." She splashed water on her face, hiding the evidence of her tears. "What if it was for the sake of innovation, for the sake of progress. Society is experiencing stagnation, technology spread and now it's constipated. What about harm, then, in small doses? A little harm, restricted to a lab rat. If I kept it only to rats. What's the harm, if it's rats?"

"What? You aren't making any sense!" Shilo started to get up and remembered the tubes coming out of her hand, the machines beeping in protest when she wiggled. The pulse monitor, the blood pressure cuff squeezing her arm. It was all as familiar, as near and dear, as her stuffed animals, and she was used to waiting for the grown-up responsible for the application of the cumbersome equipment to leave before tugging everything off.

The woman smoothed her hair back from her forehead. The smile she gave her reflection was bright and giddy and assured. "Nevermind. Just grown-up stuff. I think it's safe to quit your meds for now. I'll try to see what's wrong with the prescription."

"Okay. By the way, I am all for you testing on rats if it helps you find my cure," Shilo added, and Dizzy giggled.

"Thank you, I'll keep that in mind."

She found an extra jacket, made of that rubbery, dark fabric Repo Men favored, on a mannequin. She draped it on Shilo like a blanket and kissed her cheek.

When Shilo woke up, she was alone in the house. She extricated herself from the machinery and went to the kitchen. The jacket was discarded and abandoned in the lab with as much revulsion as she could muster. Theatricality was not her strong suit, but anything having to do with repossessions deserved it, the uniform included.

First, she was going to get herself a cold glass of milk and a plate of cookies. Second, she'd check her messages and see what was happening in the world since she'd gone to sleep.

She figured it would be safe to wait before calling Amber Sweet back. After all, she'd been unconscious, and they wouldn't know otherwise until she informed them. However, she hadn't taken into account the presence of GeneCo's cameras, which picked up on the wonderful new fact that Shilo was up and walking about. Amber was not in a patient mood, and she didn't think that her calls were responded to in a timely manner. The henchgirls were dispatched to drag the girl in, and she kicked and screamed all the way to the limo. The driver calmed her down and offered her a shawl. Even so, it was the middle of the night and she shivered in her nightgown.

She was dragged before the Largo siblings in Amber's frilly red bedroom. The heiress lounged, barely dressed, across her bed, listlessly dangling a cigarette holder between acrylic nails. She didn't seem to mind that ashes were sprinkling onto the sheets. Her hair was up in rollers and matched Pavi's in its shade and glossiness; it could, for all Shilo knew, be natural. Luigi rubbed his sister's shoulders like he was her coach, muttering something low in encouraging tones.

Pavi was admiring himself in the mirror and smiled brightly at the henchgirls as they threw the girl to the carpet and departed. His eyes tracked the line of their legs, the pronounced curves of their asses, and Shilo's nose wrinkled. Pavi, although seemingly the least violent of the trio, was disturbing in his own way.

Amber looked up and brushed Luigi away, sitting up with perfect posture. She turned her head at a stylish angle, to best show off her improved jawline. Shilo noted at least a dozen new changes, including lifted eyebrows, whiter teeth, and olive-colored skin.

"Took them long enough, didn't it, brother?" she said to neither man in particular with a chuckle.

"You should spank them!" Pavi chimed in, and Luigi threw him a disgusted look. He smiled innocently and went on, "The Pavi could help!"

Shilo was shaking more from indignation than fear. She'd been out sick, sicker than she'd ever been in her life, and the second she was barely well enough to walk around, they decide to kidnap her for no apparent reason, just because they wanted to. Nothing could be that important. Whatever whim they'd operated on could have waited until the morning.

"What the fuck is wrong with you people?" she snapped.

"Watch your tongue," Amber retorted. She smirked and stabbed a finger at Luigi. "or he'll cut it out and feed it to my dogs."

"Yeah, I'd love to butcher that sweet piece of meat," he agreed. "Say the word, sister. I'll give the leftovers to Pavi."

"Oh joy!" Pavi squealed.

"Anyway!" The woman carelessly put out the cigarette on Luigi's shirt and tossed the holder aside to litter the floor. He snarled and tore off his burned shirt, revealing a severely scarred torso that briefly drew Shilo's astonished stare. Amber jumped off the bed, drew her robe primly closed over black lingerie and sauntered toward Shilo. Putting an arm around the girl, she said, "You're like the sister I never needed. We're close, aren't we?"

"No. I can't stand you," Shilo said with a shudder, trying to get out from the woman's suffocating grasp.

She didn't much like that and pinched her closer.

"You wanna be important to this city? Then you'll want to be nice to me and my brothers. I can be a real bitch," Amber promised menacingly.

Shilo shoved her away. "Don't do me any favors. I can take whatever you dish out. Remember that I've got dirt on you?" She scowled at Pavi and Luigi in turn. "Every one of you. What've you got Amber, huh?"

Amber smiled and traced a line down the girl's cheek. "It's simple: power. You need me, Shilo. You'll see that, one way or another. I'm being sweet..." She reached her neck and pressed against her pulse with a sharp nail. "... for now."

"You need me too," Shilo asserted.

"Is that so?" Her hand dropped to her side, then went up to touch her hair, making sure each strand was secured in the rollers. A perfectionist, a princess. She'd never had a care in the world, not really. No wonder Graverobber couldn't stand her.

"Give it a think, Amber. See if anything lights up. What if something happened to me? What would people say?"

"I'm not stupid. Why do you think I brought you here?" She glared at her brothers. Her voice had dropped an octave, and most of the artifice in her mannerisms vanished. "It certainly wasn't their idea. You think they've got the brains in this family?"

"But, sister," Pavi started, but she zipped her pinched fingers across her lips. Shut up.

"Pavi, you're just here to look pretty. Can you handle that and let me make my fucking point, huh?" she snarled. He ignored her, having found his own beaming reflection. "Shilo. Shilo, my dear little friend, you know how many events you missed this week?"

"Should I guess?" Shilo asked sarcastically, sitting on the bed. It gave and bounced back oddly, and she pressed down. Water bed. It was big enough that she could maintain distance from Luigi while resting.

"Fifteen. I go to the trouble of fitting you into our schedule, making sure your name is on every program, even gave you a few minutes to speak at the opening of a new museum. You missed every. Single. One." She shook her head. "Even Pavi's ballet recital. He was so disappointed."

"I was sick," she said through gritted teeth, folding her arms tightly. "Get off my case, Sweet. I'm sorry if I cost you money, and I can pay you back-"

"Ha!"

"-but you need to shut up and listen to me, or I'm leaving."

Amber looked slightly impressed. She turned away to hide her smile, sat at her vanity, and reached for a jar of expensive face cream, dabbing it on her cheeks, smoothing it into the synthetic skin. "Fine, whatever. I'm listening."

"I'm important to you. Your public image is tied directly to my well-being, now. If anything happens to me, anything at all, people will turn against you. You won't just lose their money." She relished the anguish on Amber's face when she said, "You'll be hated. Booed everywhere you go, because you hurt me."

"Why- why should they care about you? You're no one, you're not Rotti's daughter," Amber protested, but her haughty air was feeble, riddled with uncertainty.

"Because I'm what my father was. A symbol. Different methods, but he controlled the emotion of the city, too, didn't he?" She could do it, too. The people supported her, and she could help them find a better way. "He was their nightmare. I'm their hope. You kill their hope, and they'll tear you down like _that_." She snapped her fingers. "They'll become _your_ nightmare, Amber."

Amber gripped the edges of the desk, turning her head down, chin to her chest, in a dramatic show of defeat. "What do you want from me?"

"Nothing. I told you that. I'll be a part of your events, but don't expect me to praise your company, not while any Repo Men are still out there."

There was no response. Shilo looked nervously around at Amber's older brothers for a little help. Luigi rolled his eyes, went to his sister and put a hand on her shoulder, squeezing it. His touch mixed roughness and affection, and it got through to her. She lolled her head against his hand, looking up at him pitifully.

"Get up," he told her. "What's the matter with you? You're a Largo. You're better than this bratty crap."

"Oh, shut up," she said, getting to her feet. She fixed Shilo with a look of true concern. "You've seriously been sick all week? Do you want to see one of my doctors? I could arrange that, it's no trouble for me."

The girl politely and firmly declined. "Really, that's okay. I'm seeing someone, and she's unaffiliated."

After that discussion, she was treated with kid gloves. Amber treated her to a full meal prepared in a frenzied panic by the Largo's personal chef. She dug into the food with gusto, then excused herself to powder her nose. Shilo later, at the woman's insistence, exchanged the thin shawl for one of Amber Sweet's fox furs, for the chilly ride home. To borrow only, but it was so luxuriant. She fell asleep without really meaning to, mesmerized by the hum of the engine and the city, all lit up and treacherously beautiful, passing by through the dark windows. The silent driver carried her gently into the house and laid her to bed. Come the morning, she was delighted to call in and find that she still had a job.

In her wildest daydreams, when still her dad's prisoner, Shilo had never envisioned a future where she could go into a place and be swarmed by women - and one or two men - happy to see her, who missed her, who asked how she was doing. They made plans to go out at the end of the week, and Shilo entertained the idea of asking Graverobber to go along with her before shutting that train of thought down. She could go places on her own. She could have fun without him, and it wouldn't kill her to try.  
  


* * *

  
Graverobber looked around Dizzy's flat. Nope. Nothin'. The cupboards were bare except for what only the most generous would consider food; protein shakes, granola, rice cakes, vitamins. He popped outside and considered the shed. Dizzy had said it was off limits, but she had to know how unseriously he took her rules.

He pushed open the door. He'd expected a cadaver on a surgical table, or the doctor fussing with chemicals, adjusting solutions drop by drop. He'd expected to stumble into laboratory levels of brightness.

Instead, he walked into a cramped dungeon. She wasn't in the room with him, but he heard rummaging behind a door. Across the far wall was a velvet curtain. He took advantage of her temporary absence and walked forward, drawing the fabric back to reveal a dozen screens set into the wall.

What the fuck?

It was too dark to really see what the set up was. There was a switch on the console by the screens, and he flipped it. The dark remained, but the screens snapped to life, each an individual image, and each familiar.

Stops on his route where he peddled his wares. The outside of Dizzy's shack. Shilo's bedroom, currently missing its occupant. The reason, in fact, that he was here. He hadn't heard any news on her in over a week. She'd gone into a coma and he let himself be talked into leaving her side, and now he didn't know where she was. Not in her bed, evidently, if this was a live feed.

Why was Dizzy watching his customers? Why was she watching Shilo? He perused each image, noting the junkies and their condition. Sleeping, mostly. One guy was puking up a storm.

"Graverobber," Dizzy said. He turned away from the security cameras. She carried a candle in one hand to illuminate her way and a doctor's bag in the other. "Shit. Oh, shit."

"Would you care to explain this?" he posed.

"You weren't supposed to see this. You were never going to find out." She was becoming frantic, and she set the candle down on a chess table. It oozed wax onto the cracks in the checkered, faded wood.

"Tell me what this is."

"Please, let's go back to the house. It's nothing that concerns you," she tried.

"Clearly it does. Those are _my_ people, Dizzy, unless you're starting your own grave-business. Why the cameras?" She slumped and he went on, "I'm not leaving until you tell me."

"Fine. Don't blame me if you don't like what I have to say." She rumpled her hair until it stood straight up. "I won't waste my time lying to you."

"You warned me. Now tell me what's going on."

"Surveillance. Keeping track of my experiments."

He hissed and waited for her continue.

"I'm recreating the first plague. By incorporating it into Zydrate, it can be passed into the general population easily, without suspicion." The candlelight filtered across her features, rendering her terrible to behold. She was lovely, dead sexy, and a monster, a scab of a human being. "Do you have any idea how much GeneCo would pay for that technology? To use it themselves, or to keep me from unleashing it on their balanced world, it doesn't matter much to me."

"I get the picture. More money than I could ever imagine, right?" He watched coldly as she set the bag on a table and pulled out a Zydrate gun. He didn't want to know, but had to ask, had to wring out the truth no matter how unbearable it was. "And just where did you get the Z for these experiments?"

"You." He stared at her. "Shilo's even seen me going through your bag. You stay the night, I slip the compound into your little glass vials, and then I monitor its distribution. I see the results unfold spark by spark. I made sure I only used the clean stuff for my own needs. I'm not a moron."

Never mind that she'd betrayed him. Never mind that he'd been inadvertently poisoning druggies, never mind that she hadn't really let go of her dream of being important to GeneCo, of getting her job back. There was only one person he was here for, one person who he cared about enough to keep out of harm's way.

"Yeah. You're a real genius," he said. "What of Shilo Wallace?"

She grimaced. "I didn't plan on her. You brought her to me, Graverobber. You know her immune system was perfectly clean? She was a perfect control subject. It takes longer on the Zydrate addicts. Her... It worked faster than I intended."

"You tested on her," he said, dumbfounded. "You hurt her?"

"I wasn't going to do it indefinitely. It wasn't completely about hurting her. She was ideal, and she happened along. It wouldn't be forever," she insisted.

He advanced on her and yelled, "She trusts you!"

Dizzy burst into tears, not crying but angry sobs pushing moisture from her eyes to dribble unevenly from her eyelashes onto her cheeks. "That's her own damn fault! It's not my problem if she has issues."

"Issues? Issues? You POISONED her, and she- she LOVES you, you psychotic bitch!"

"Yeah," she seethed through tears. "Why don't you go ahead and tell her? Just go on and tell her so she can hate me like I deserve. I don't need her to love me. I don't need a dependent little orphan clinging all over me."

He forced himself not to punch her. He could tear her apart with his bare hands. She'd given him more than enough reason to.

"You'd love that. No, I will never tell her what you've done. She doesn't deserve that. You will never- this is it for us, Dizzy."

"Oh, does this mean we're not friends?" she said mockingly. "Does this mean we won't fuck like rabbits anymore?"

"You're the one who cut me off!" he clarified. She winced, and he realized, "That's what this is about, isn't it? You're that petty? Because I want her, because I care about her and not you?" He pointed at the screen even though she wasn't there. Shilo.

She glowered. "God, maybe that is part of it. You were one of many disappointments. I'm angry that you care about anyone at all. I liked you better when you kept yourself at a distance, like me."

"Yeah, well I'm not you."

She laughed bitterly. "That's for damn certain."

His gloved hands curled, and he spun on his heel and punched through the screen showing Shilo's bedroom. Dizzy shrieked at the breaking glass and the sudden sparks. He growled, "You will NEVER see her again."

He was on his way out the door when she cried for him to stop.

He glared at her. "What."

"I'm going to die."

"Big news! We all are. What makes you so special?" And, more importantly, why should he care. He raised his eyebrows and held the door ajar. The light seemed to pain her. She shied away from it.

"I failed. The compound never came together like I wanted, it just proved... I suspect it would have been fatal. I only wanted to cause organ damage, not kill-"

"Get to the point."

"GeneCo found me. I'm due for repossession soon. It could be an hour, or a few days. There's no way I can pay the full sum, even if I wanted to." Her eyes pleaded with him. "I'm not afraid of death, Graverobber, but... I am fucking terrified of the pain."

She reached for the Zydrate gun and pointed to her neck. He stared at her incredulously. "After what you told me, why should I do anything for you? What makes you think you deserve an ounce of mercy?"

"Graverobber, I'm giving up. I surrender. Repo can have me. This is all I'm asking. Shilo wouldn't want me to be in pain," she begged, and he knew, damn her, that she was right. Shilo would hate him for denying her this.

If Shilo ever learned the truth...

He fitted the gun with a vial and gave her the full dose, plus a second vial for good measure. There was no intimacy in it, not this time, not ever again. "That'll last you a few days. If it happens after that, you're shit out of luck."

"I'll put on a good show," she said. "Have to be back in the house so... so I can sleep in my own bed."

He paused before leaving. "Was it worth it?"

She was weaving, her eyes glazed over. "Graverobber, don't worry your head about it. I don't care what any of you think of me, especially not her."

He slammed the door shut behind him and spat on the ground. Fucking bitch. He wanted it to be painful, but too late to take it back now.

 


	17. A Sobering Truth

The music thrummed inside her ears and up her legs like a living thing, insistent, electric. Wheeling blips of light flashed over and around her, spindling arms of color in the hot and crowded dark, blinding and illuminating in one. The club was alive, and in her mind she contrasted it with the graveyard she practically lived at, not too far from here. The graveyard was comforting, cold and crowded death, long stretches of silence punctuated with brief terrifying altercations with cops and the occasional opossum.

Gentle sashaying of her hips made the edges of that dress, oh that gorgeous metallic concoction of black lace and rose red sequins, flash out at the hips, the jingle jingle imperceptible under the music. The music, the music pounder. She looked in awe at the people meshing around her, the music moving them, the free-moving drinks moving them. A man whose finely chiseled torso was only covered by a bow tie and a leather harness dispensed smoking drinks from a silver tray. She took a glass to have something to still her hands.

Her hands were shaking.

In spite of the music, that exciting, rambunctious atmosphere, the colorful and lively people all around her, Shilo was anxious and not happy to be in a crowd. By week's end, at least she was feeling better. She had seen neither hide nor hair of Dizzy in a week, but she refused to take Amber up on her offer of seeing a surGEN. The last thing she needed was for GeneCo to have even a fingerhold more in her life than they presently did.

She'd gone off her meds and the change was immediate. No more nausea, and the fever dropped. Dizzy had evidently really fucked up somewhere. Not to say that she felt perfect. Of course she was exhausted and ridden with teenage hormones and _loneliness_ , but she had to be here. It was not just about being a normal girl and going out. It was not just about being social and exploring beyond the limits of her house.

There was purpose to this, and opportunity to do great good, if she could find the courage. She could help these people, but she would have to hurt them first. She would have to hurt herself.

The idea had come to her at the Largo's, a happy accident. Lost trying to find the bathroom, she'd stumbled into a room that she at first mistook for a closet. Curiosity made her do it, made her stay and investigate. She hit the lights, closed the door, and found file cabinets, old fashioned yellow things with drawers that creaked when pulled out. Inside were security feed, reels and reels of tape. She examined them. They were labeled not by date or alphabetical order, but by event.

**12 yrs M: aortic valve**

**57 yrs f: BLADDER, ovaries**

**18 retro-iris, kidneys**

And so on, and she froze, realizing what she'd stumbled on: the Largo's snuff film collection, starring Repo Man and his most fascinating victims. All she wanted to do was bolt, leave this awful place and retreat to her bedroom to cry and feel sorry for herself and all the victims whose last moments had been documented.

That would be doing them an injustice, to leave them here, slices of entertainment for her not-siblings's enjoyment. Her skin crawled. Pavi probably ate popcorn and Luigi probably took notes. How did these people sleep at night? How could she, if she gave in to her fear and fled?

She picked out the youngest ages, the saddest cases, and hid the tapes in her clothes. This was not only blackmail. This would hurt them, and she hoped it would be irreparable. She hoped this would free the city. This city was chained with the ridiculous notion that the Largos were their salvation, and Shilo had the key.

The club was called Skeleton Hands for some reason that eluded her. Nothing about the place suggested bones or fingers or palms. No cheap death motifs, nothing resembling a Halloween decoration. It was dark and colorful and smoky, and the dance floor glowed, making the men and women in motion there all the more beautiful. Her coworkers were somewhere in the crowd, but she'd lost sight of individual heads, letting herself slip away on arrival. They didn't know why she'd agreed to join them. Shilo's purse dangled from her bare wrist and bounced against her hip, reminding her that she wasn't here to gawk, and certainly not to enjoy herself.

She set her drink down at a table surrounded by men laughing and clinging to each other. The table was littered with empty glasses, and one fellow was especially grateful for the refill. He kissed her hand wetly and said she was an absolute godsend. She backed away, revolted by the contact. Getting slobbered on by a stranger was not her idea of a fun time.

A woman, about forty years old, stood on a raised platform, performing. It was a show, an enticing display of flesh and daring. Behind her, an enormous screen flashed vibrant colors and commercials, irresistibly drawing the eye. She appeared to be wearing iron underwear, and she wielded a power tool that sparked and made a horrendous noise as it cut away at the thick metal. Her entire body was shiny, nearly reflective. One slip, one clumsy move, and her gore would gush out onto the dancers below. They'd have to cart her away and try to stuff her back together. The thought both fascinated and disgusted Shilo enough to break her focus on the woman. Rather than waste more time watching the spectacle, she instead slipped into a back room, where it was relatively quiet and entirely unmoderated.

The projection room. She'd seen something like it before; Rotti had used a projector to tell her to trap the Repo Man. It had worked on her like a magic trick. She approached the contraption, found where the film reel went, and removed it. She wondered if anyone had noticed. They had seemed intent on their own activities.

The music died and she heard murmurs. So they had noticed the screen going white. The sound of metal squealing had stopped, too, and she could just imagine the lady staring at the blank screen. Shilo retrieved the snuff film from her purse and played it. She hadn't watched it, not yet. It would be the first time for everyone here, and she hurried back out to the dance floor.

The platform was vacant. Shilo ascended the stairs on the side, finding the "stage" to be taller than anticipated. The screen flashed black and white, roughly cut together. She and the crowd stood and watched as the show, the real show, began.

Chuckling. Cackling. A Repo Man- no, that Repo Man, that one that she'd seen in the graveyard, the one with unsettling eyes, the one she'd knocked to the ground in her desperation - backed away from the camera, and a young girl with sunken cheeks and dark braids was bound on the floor and sobbing. She didn't look more than ten or eleven, even in fishnets. Shilo felt sick to her stomach, and the gleeful figure was wheeling about, flicking a long-handled scalpel out from his doctor's bag.

He twisted the girl's braids in one gloved hand, yanking her head up so he could look into her eyes. She pleaded with him not to saw her up. She offered him money, said that she'd get money soon. She offered her body. He paused. There was real hesitation.

Shilo flinched and thought he was considering the child's offer, that this was going to become pornographic and she'd have to watch him rape as well as kill, but he looked at the camera, his grip on the black hair going slack. He spoke with Nathan's voice, deep and broken: "I can't do this. She could be my-"

"Your daughter?" Rotti finished. "Ah, that's right. Ever the doting dad. What would she think if she saw you now, Nathan?"

"She'd be fucking heart-broken!" Amber said shrilly. "We don't want that, do we?"

"I can't, please. Please. This is a child. She's only a child."

To him, killing this girl would be like killing Shilo. Maybe reality distorted for him when he was in that uniform, to protect what remained of his humanity. Maybe to become that person, he had to divide the world into Shilo and not-Shilo. He was trapped there, split from reality, pinned with their words in that dreadful place. He couldn't walk away but he couldn't make himself do it, not yet.

"Doesn't matter what you want," Amber said. "It's what we want, and I want what she's got. See-" There was the sound of shuffling papers. "- _Prudence_ , there, has pristine parts. She won't need them, seeing as she couldn't pay for... what was it, daddy?"

"It's pronounced 'esophagus,' moron," Luigi snickered.

"Fuck you," she snapped.

"Children, please!" All the while Repo Man waited, and the audience waited, and the Largos bickered childishly as if lives were not in the balance, as if doses of pain weren't the stakes, as if they had no cares, as if the girl wasn't screaming pleas for mercy, screaming that she would give up her soul for another chance. That was entirely the point. "Nathan, you have to do this. Should this tape fall into your daughter's hands..."

"No," Nathan said, his voice strangled. It twisted, gnarled into Repo Man's savage growl as he dragged the girl's head at an angle, the pale neck exposed. Nathan made sure she couldn't look him in the eye but Repo Man seemed to take joy in her fright. "That can't happen."

"No, no no no, please, _I don't want to die_!" the girl shrieked, and the scalpel efficiently slit her throat enough to silence her but keep her breathing.

The audience below Shilo, so used to death and dying, made angry, upset noises as the little girl choked and bubbled up her blood, out her pretty mouth and all down her front. He was precise, but the murder was messy. Her blood could not be contained, and the more he proceeded with the butchering, the more her blood soaked him. He went to work cutting up her dress, and the way he cut at the flesh of her belly was calculating and brutal.

Shilo struggled to remain standing. Despair made her want to buckle, even in front of all these people. She'd been used before even knowing Rotti, used to keep her father doing this, hurting people. Hurting children, even. It couldn't be an accident that they'd picked this victim for this particular Repo Man. It was psychological torture, forcing him to hurt a little girl. Like her.

She felt grief and rage, and then there was that fear of a dead man. They'd turned him into this and then he'd gone home, each day, to his daughter. What if he'd lost control? What if he'd started on her? He liked the violence. There was no hesitation now, and he laughed maniacally as the girl twitched on the concrete in a puddle of gore. Her stomach was hollowed out. The muscles in her face relaxed as she turned her head toward the camera and expired.

Rotti chuckled in satisfaction, and as Repo Man set the scalpel down and observed his work, Amber pranced forward, pointing out what she wanted. A GENtern took notes. The tape flickered at the end, holding on a frame of Repo Man drenched in blood, and a still silence was over the room.

All eyes were on Shilo. She swallowed her emotions. There was nothing she could do to change what had happened. All she could do now was shine a new light and hope the world could accept the truth of their reality. The Largos weren't heroes. She didn't claim to be a hero, but she wasn't fucked up like them.

"Um," she said. "I- I thought this had to be seen. My dad... I think you all recognize him, right?" A few people chuckled, and she found confidence in that. Her voice grew stronger as she went on. "He used to say the world was cruel. And you know what? He was right. It is. The people running GeneCo are monsters."

"FUCK YEAH!" someone yelled. Not drunkenly.

She was startled at first, but gradually she smiled. "Kids like- like Prudence won't be terrorized anymore. I don't want to stop there. I couldn't save Prudence, I couldn't save Mag, but I want to save you."

She looked out over the crowd, not fixing on any one person. She thought of the corpses that many would become prematurely if she stood by and did nothing.

"All of you. But you have to let me save you," she stated, a plea made powerful by her timidity. "Don't trust the Largos. GeneCo isn't what any of us thought. They don't want to cure you. They want to use you. Please remember that."

She took the rest of the stolen tapes and set them on the edge of the stage and backed away as people reached for them.

Sleep wouldn't come easily to Shilo that night, not without help. A lobotomy might be just the thing she needed. Those horrific images were painted on her eyelids, and even when she closed her eyes, she saw that hungry scalpel slashing down, and the desperate screams of a girl sacrificed for Amber's vanity and Nathan's obedience.

She went to the bar and was informed that she'd be drinking for free because of what she'd done. Shots were set down, four in a row.  
  


* * *

  
Graverobber whistled as he ambled down the street. He hadn't a care in the world. Money jingled in his pocket and Zydrate glowed at his side, minus one vial from his original count. This Zydrate really was pure, and while some of his "patients" still puked and sported fever blushes, he doubted the sickness would continue on or spread to the general population. Dizzy had grandiose ambitions that her medical fumblings couldn't support. By his estimation, the drug would have to be faithfully administered to each person until their death to cause any death. What it would not do was create a transmittable disease, which was why he remained healthy.

It was fantastic.

He had used - or perhaps it was abused - the opportunity to nurse one lovely girl back to health. Repeatedly. He'd found very creative ways to check her temperature as it rose and fell, and she was unspeakably grateful for his assistance. Now she was sleeping alone in a sleazy motel, would wake up to find him gone. There would be a vial of Zydrate tucked between her breasts, to ease the sorrow of parting. Should there be tears, he was glad to have made himself scarce. Comfort was not his forte.

Graffiti amused him. All along one wall, white footprints staggered, walking on. Letters underneath proclaimed, "FOLLOW SHILO."

Fancy that! They both had reputations. He was the most infamous criminal on the island, and she was the most- hell, what was she? Sort of a rising star, a celebrity born out of her own personal tragedy and sweetness. That such a girl was the product of a butcher of men only added to her acclaim.

She hadn't been around. He figured she'd been sleeping, recovering from the poison she'd unwittingly accepted into her body at a friend's recommendation. He hadn't thought much about it for a week, and now he remembered why.

Shilo made him feel many new things, and now he could add guilt to the list. Strong guilt, chewing away at him on an intestinal level, for bringing the girl to Dizzy, who turned out to be a complete psychopath with an ignoble cause. Lesson learned the hard way, but it killed him that she'd suffered because of his mistake. He'd trusted the wrong person, and she, in turn, had trusted him. It was a vicious half-circle of misplaced trusts.

"Graverobber," an unwelcome voice snarled.

He sighed. Damn it. He couldn't very well turn around and avoid her. That would be ungentlemanly, not to mention obvious, in the light of day. Her pet guards weren't at her side, but he doubted she would allow him to leave if she wanted something.

He hoped it was Street Z.

Amber was in a fluffy black and red coat. It shed feathers on the ground as she met him halfway. "Where've you been?" she snapped.

"Around," he said, offering no details.

She took hold of his scarf, pulling her body in to press his as she licked his neck. He met her contemptuous gaze evenly. "You've been fucking someone."

He smirked. "Why, Amber, you know I'd never kiss and tell."

"I thought you only wanted the kid," she said. "Unless the rumors are wrong. I hear you've been marking her up." She raked her nails down his cheek and murmured, "Is she your slut now, Graverobber?"

"Hey, now leave her out of this!" he said warningly, seizing her wrist.

She laughed and he let go. "Ha! Knew it wasn't true. You don't have the balls."

"Is that so?"

She took a step back. "Give me a hit." She spread her legs and lifted her dress to expose one thigh. He powered the Zydrate gun she proffered with one of the little glass vials he'd collected and put the needle to her skin. And didn't depress the trigger. She glared at him.

"Payment. Or did you forget how this works?" he said silkily.

Amber pouted and took gold coins from her bra, chucking them at his head. She whined, "Come on, now! I want it. I want it, baby, and only you can give it to me like I deserve."

"Naughty. That was real mature of you, by the way." He shot her up and collected his earnings as she sank to the ground, spasming. She'd be out for an hour or so unless someone came to get her and hide her disgraced self until she sobered up. She couldn't rely on Rotti for that anymore, that was for damn certain.

Graverobber was all set to go when Amber clutched at his coat with surprising ferocity, considering she was as high as a kite. He scowled down at her.

"You're easy," she slurred.

"Yeah?" He told himself he couldn't care less, but his head was screaming danger. He felt, for the first time in as long as he could remember, fear.

It took obvious effort, but her look focused on him, the eyes narrowing into slits. "You think the Wallace brat's safe because... why? I own the repossession biz, and she's been a naughty girl, Graverobber. Do you even know where she is?"

He found the truth there, and understood that Amber had found him here and delayed him for her own purposes: to find and punish Shilo. Shilo was defenseless against those killing machines. He let this sink in, and felt the casual arrogance he wore like cologne bleed away, and Amber Sweet smiled at the change her words had brought. He was very afraid.

"Do you even know where Shilo is?" she repeated challengingly.

No. No, he didn't.

He fled.

 

Shilo forced herself out of bed at the insistent beeping of her wristcomm. Her head pounded as she struggled to remember the end of the previous evening. A lot of drinking. She'd slammed back enough liquor to take out a small whale, according to the bartender, and the cab driver warned her that she'd have a bitch of a hangover. He was, ugh, right.

Stupid headache.

Stupid sunlight.

Stupid beeping.

The world was a cruel, cruel place, and she wanted it to shut up and go away in nice, dark silence so she could go back to sleep for the duration of the morning and possibly into the afternoon, if she felt like it. Sadly, the phone kept beeping, and ignoring it wouldn't make it go away. Nothing would make it stop except for attention.

She grumbled and attached the circlet to her wrist.

_Incoming message from Amber Sweet. Incoming message from Amber Sweet._

She hit a button, sleepy and irritated. And nervous, because any reason that Amber would call so early couldn't be good. A floating image of the woman's smiling, raven-haired head appeared, and a recorded, staticky message played.

"Ha! You think you're clever. Kids get to rack up their debts now, so everyone else starts to wonder why they can't be the same. You know what you're doing to sales? Unbelievable. You think GeneCo's a house of cards, dontcha, you fucking mouse? Yank out one piece of our operations and the rest comes tumbling down? Oh, I love your sad attempts at controlling me. I think it's HYSTERICAL - Pavi, get away from me, go fuck a GENtern! - But you forgot one thing: You got heart, I don't. And now..." She cackled, a hideous sound that set Shilo's teeth on edge. Shilo felt the words before she heard them pronounced. "One of your friends just lost theirs."

The message dissolved into gleeful laughter. She shut the comm off and staggered, grabbing the curtain for support, tearing it down as she crumpled into a crouch with her knees drawn up to her chest. She sobbed openly into her hands and her mind was a chorus of no's and why's. Her friend. The only one she had, Graverobber. No, please not Graverobber. Of course it was him. Amber took him away, that bitch, that bitch. Shilo had let herself feel something for him, something real and strong, and now the resulting pain was just as real and strong, she hurt him, she hurt him, he hurt her because he wasn't here.

The horrible thing was knowing how Repo Man operated.

Watching that video made the details come alive in her mind's eye, and she didn't want that but couldn't stop them from filling in, making her worst nightmares seem like a sanctuary. Her new nightmare wrote itself out in spite of her attempts to shut down those thoughts. There were questions that she couldn't stand to answer, last moments that she couldn't stand to imagine.

Had he thought of her, had he fought back, had he known it was her fault, had he known she cared for him so much-

She tried to think of him in unkillable terms, that he was too tall, too strong and quick to be taken down by anyone, even a GeneCo assassin. She tried to think of him crooning to her, his breath hot on her neck, her lips. Taking care of her, accepting her touch, listening to her, teaching.

She flashed through the memories of him, kisses, phrases, rescues, anything to block out the nightmare. These thoughts were drowned and overcome by what had happened to her Graverobber. She relented, and the full pain and terror washed over her.

Graverobber cut open?

Graverobber dead in a pool of his own blood?

Graverobber's blue eyes glassy like the corpses he stole from?

Yes. Because of her.

No more stolen kisses, no more wild chases, adventures. She could have lived without that. But it was because of her. If he hadn't associated with her, been seen with her, he'd be alive. She was to blame.

"I'm sorry, Graves," she whimpered brokenly.

"So am I, kid." He stood at the door, arms crossed. From the grim look on his face, he'd heard the message. "Now's no time to fall apart. Come on."

No time to feel relief or throw her arms around him, because with Graverobber alive, that left only one...

 

The scene at Dizzy's was gruesome, nightmarish. The door was kicked down, and Graverobber gave her no warning, didn't tell her to close her eyes or look away, didn't make her stay outside. She thought the opera had been bad, but this was... she couldn't...

She screamed "No, please, no!" and raced forward, grabbed Dizzy, tried to get her to move, crying wake up, please wake up. Her mind was screaming.

The dried blood was everywhere: on the walls in long drips, handprints, desperate scrabbling clawing trails of oxidized blood on the ground as she was dragged through the house from her bedroom to the living room, where she could more easily be found.

She begged her to get up and would never hear an answer, not from those lips, not ever. She'd failed her. She'd forgotten her. The woman's scrubs had been ruthlessly torn off and her midline had been sawed viciously open, not a clean stroke but in sick, serrated slashes. Her heart, as promised, had been ripped out.

The expression on her face was torn between terror and ecstasy, mouth open in a drawn out moan of pain, the eyes open permanently, no eyelids left to close them. Her eyes were washed with blood that trickled down her cheeks.

Shilo tried to hold the flaps of skin on that ruined and butchered torso together, pushing down against the gore. It squished against her hands noisily. She'd caused this. She hated herself for doing this, for ever meeting Dizzy, for letting her become important enough to be used against her, for feeling relief that Graverobber was alive, he was alive, he was alive, Dizzy was dissected like a lab rat and it was HER FAULT.

"Shilo..." Graverobber watched her struggle to put the broken body back together.

"Why did this happen?" she cried.

She gave up and instead hugged the woman, cold and sticky and heavy from several hours of being dead.

"Amber must've had you followed and found her here. Kid- Shilo, that's enough, she's dead. It's over."

He was pulling her roughly off, tearing her from Dizzy's lifeless body.

"No, Graves," she wailed pleadingly, trying to hold on.

"SHE'S DEAD!" he yelled at the top of his lungs, and the volume so shocked her that her hysteria fled instantly, leaving her calm. Covered in blood and upset beyond belief, but calm.

She collapsed against his chest, and he held her up. She was a bloody mess.

"I killed her."

"You didn't."

He was herding her away, practically shoving her into the bathroom. He shut the door, brushed past her shaking body to put a stopper in the tub, turning the faucet on full blast. She listlessly watched the water steam and gush.

"You're a mess, kid," he muttered. It was true. She was dripping Dizzy on the tile.

She protested, "I am _not_ taking my clothes off; you'll see everything!"

He rolled his eyes and added in bubble bath. Her modesty was endearing, but he didn't have the patience for it at the moment. The only emotions he had room for in his body were relief that his Shilo was safe and cold satisfaction that Dizzy had gotten her just desserts. Mostly it was the relief thing. Shilo watched the surface of the water disappear under the froth. She turned her hand, telling him to turn his back before quickly undressing. Tragically, the mirror over the sink was not angled in such a way that he could catch a peek, and he heard her splash into the scalding hot water.

He took off his coat and sat on the tiled floor, leaning on the side of the tub to talk in conspiratorial tones. The entire conversation was held in softest whispers. He liked this situation, minus the dead woman outside the door and the blood swirling in the bath. Without those factors, it would be cozy, indeed.

"She had the rest of the house bugged." He didn't have to say who she was. He said that the whole assassination and their reaction had probably been watched, and they'd have to talk quietly. "Listen, Dizz knew this would happen before you were introduced. She talked to me about it. A week ago, she got her repossession notice and I helped her- helped get her affairs in order. She stole more than her heart from GeneCo, and Amber set up the phone call after the hit had been put out to play you like a song. This had nothing to do with you, understand?"

Shilo didn't get it. "Why make the call at all?"

"To hurt you, make you change your mind and give up your humanitarian crusade. Don't let it get to you. Dizzy was under a mountain of debt, and I've honestly seen worse."

She said stubbornly, "She could've told me. Why didn't she?"

Because she didn't like Shilo. Because she didn't want Shilo's assistance. He sighed and concocted a small, insignificant lie. One lie didn't matter so much if it was to preserve Shilo's faith in a lost and, well, undeserving friend. If the truth would break her heart, wouldn't a lie be better for her?

"She didn't want you to worry. We figured what was going to happen and wanted it to be real for you. Amber will stop after this if you let her think she got to you. That's the idea, all right? I'm sorry, Shilo, but that's how it had to be. It had to be convincing."

"That's so stupid."

"Kid, I made sure she didn't feel any pain. Okay? I was here, before it happened. She had Zydrate."

The Zydrate wouldn't have lasted that long. Dizzy had felt everything and thus gotten the brutal death she'd feared. She'd earned it.

"She did? She had Zydrate?" the girl echoed.

Oh, Shilo. What would he have done if he'd found her dead in her bedroom? He'd have hung himself or gone on a rampage. He could understand a little of why her dad had gone batshit insane defending her. Graverobber was afraid of the affection welling up inside, the dam broken by his gratitude that she still breathed. It threatened to overwhelm him, that surge of fondness for her that he couldn't stop.

"Would I lie?" He put his hand to his heart solemnly.

She poked one dripping leg out of the water to catch the drips from the faucet on her toes. She wouldn't look at him. "When I heard the call... When Amber said someone had their heart taken, someone close to me.."

He rinsed a hand towel in the sudsy water and rubbed the blood and tears from her cheeks attentively. "Hm?"

"I thought it was you!"

She hugged him before it could occur to her that she was naked. He lowered her back into the water, smiling. She crossed her arms over her breasts, blushing.

"You were crying over me?"

She said, "I thought you were dead. Of course I was crying. Of course I would cry over you."

She took for granted that he had ever heard someone express anything like that to him. So far as he knew, no one else would mourn his passing, and Shilo would. There was pure adoration shining from her eyes, and he could never tell her how grateful he was to have seen that. She reached out of the water to touch his hair and kiss him tenderly. She was only covered by foam from the ribs down, and all that mattered to him was this: this understanding conveyed to her that it had all been a set up, easing her of guilt, of blame; Amber thought she had struck a blow, and Shilo's soft lips moved against his because she was wonderfully warm and alive.

"I thought it was you," she said again.

"It's okay, kid. I'm here, you're here. Together. We're fine." After a suitable duration of holding her close and stroking her hair, he peeked between them. "Hello there," he greeted her breasts.

She giggled. He hmmmed, moved one hand, and gently squeezed experimentally, trying to lighten the mood. She bit her lip and moved his hand off of her body.

"Another time."

It was a to-be-continued, not an out and out rejection. To tell the truth, he wasn't much in the mood, either.

"I'll hold you to it," he said. She pulled away to slide back into the water.

Those bubbles had disturbingly long lives.

 

 


	18. Playing Doctor

She simply wouldn't leave the bathroom until the cleanup crew gathered up her friend's remains. By no means was she hysterical, but he didn't push the issue. Gore upset her in this instance, and... it upset him too, not that he'd ever admit it. Shilo kicked him out long before the bubbles really began to disappear. He waved the truck in from the road, amused that, even with the help of spying cameras, people found themselves lost here. The two trash collectors didn't need his help carrying the husk outside and into the back of the truck, but he gave it anyway.

She'd been a husk even before her death; he saw that now. He'd completed the process by relieving his former comrade of her precious Zydrate. Quick, clean. Gone. And ne'er again would she trouble these halls. They bleached the floor and sprayed down the walls with heat and disinfectant. He threw out the food that was rancid in her pantry and rifled through her possessions for money. There wasn't much left of anything. She'd been flat broke, even by his standards.

They finally left. The place was still topsy turvy. At least there wasn't blood spattered on everything now. He opened the bathroom door a crack. Shilo sat on the toilet seat, wrapped in a towel and shivering. Her tears were all gone, yet a sad frown still crossed her features as she failed to notice him. He cleared his throat and handed her clean clothes.

"These are her things," Shilo said, making sure the towel was secure before taking the bundles.

"You can't walk home in the nude, and I don't believe her washing machine is operational."

"Okay, okay." She pressed the fabric close to her chest, as if to crush the clothing inside her skin. "This is weird. Will she get a funeral?"

"I doubt it." He drew his head back and said before closing the door, "I think it's high time we left this joint, don't you?"

He heard the rustle of cloth and waited for her answer. "I couldn't agree more. Let's get out of here." The door opened and a fully clothed Shilo greeted his tired eyes.

It was too bad, the way events had transpired. This shack had become a real second home to them. Death had an unexpected side effect of contaminating places that hosted it. The physical stains had been washed away by GeneCo's chemicals, but it was marred forever. It was so rare to find a safe, familiar place to wait out life's storms. Now he could cross one off the list for good.

So they left. He doubted they'd be back again. He took her home, and she found that the day's mail brought a crisis of a different sort. It was enough to divert her from the ugly business of mourning. Eviction loomed.

Unfortunately, what with it being only part-time work, Miss Wallace's salary did not prove to be enough to cover her considerable mortgage, and she'd been notified that her time was running out. She clenched her fist over the letter and cried. Unable to square away her debts, she would lose her home, where she had been brought into the world and lovingly raised for seventeen years.

She sat on the foot of the stairs as her failure hit with all the force of a bomb.

"I thought you were done crying."

"I'm so sorry," she said sarcastically. "Should I stop? Is that what I should do?"

Damn it, he wasn't trying to start a fight, but it seemed they were headed in that direction. He rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand, smearing his makeup. "No, go ahead. I'm not stopping you. It's been a long day, hasn't it?"

"Graverobber, you don't know what it's like," she bitterly complained. "I've had a home. A family. I've had to lose it all."

"Really, Shilo?" he asked, beginning to lose his patience with her, with the day, with his ridiculously dramatic life. "Tell me again about how much you've lost. I'm dying to hear more. Or am I just dying?"

She punched her knee. "You're being a jerk! Why don't you listen-?"

"No, _you_ listen, for once." He glared at her. "I've had a nightmare week, little girl. You always need comforting, and you know what? I'm tired."

"Oh, you're tired?" she snapped, jumping to her feet.

He stooped to look in her eyes. "Yes. Exhausted. I am tired of taking care of a spoiled brat."

"I'm not," she said in a voice shaky with indignation.

"Seems to me you are. You grew up with a silver spoon in your mouth, and by god if you didn't have a loving home, too. So you suffered for a few months? So you faced your wretched reality like a big girl?" He chuckled. "Try your whole life. See how you do then. You don't even appreciate what advantages you've had."

"Shut up! God, will you just shut up?" she yelled. "You don't know what you're talking about!"

"Tell me what I don't understand," he said low.

"You're nothing but a criminal. You didn't have a life like mine. You don't understand me, so don't pretend and try." She huffed. "You're a drug dealer. What do you know about me? You only know how to use people."

The tiff had spiraled out of control. He felt the reins on their emotions slip out of reach, and he was powerless to stop the rage that bubbled from them. And her words got to him. After all this, that's what she thought? His face darkened considerably.

"You want to be like that? Fine." He turned on his heel and headed for the door, then stopped. He couldn't leave her on this sour note. He couldn't storm out on her. Almost guiltily, he faced her.

Her mind must have been wandering the same path; the tension ebbed, and he felt a strange calm settle over him. She approached tentatively, remorsefully, and slowly embraced him. He sighed. Her arms didn't even go all the way around him. He patted her back.

"I didn't mean it," she said.

"Me neither." And it was true. Shilo was naive, hopeful, and hormonal. She had never been spoiled. She'd been sick. "Shilo, kid, how about this... we're both under stress-"

"An understatement," she muttered.

"- Considerable stress," he amended. "I know it may seem bleak now, but you won't lose it all. You can't." He kissed the top of her head.

"Even if I did, Graves, I'm alive and I'm free. And I have you, don't I?" She said these last words very softly as she let him go.

He marvelled at that statement. It came so easily to her, to say these things. She talked like they were lovers. He chucked her under the chin in a way that could be construed as either affectionate or belittling. "My advice is to call Amber and use your considerable charms to find a solution."

"What if I can't?" she asked, her voice cracking.

"Then we'll go dumpster shopping." That broke a pretty, albeit momentary, smile and he considered his work there done. He bowed with a flourish and departed.

Amber answered after ignoring and dropping four calls. Hand shoved in her pocket, Shilo spoke breathily into the wrist phone. The day was overwhelming her, and she felt horrible for being mildly traumatized by arguing with Graverobber when Dizzy had just died. He was almost her boyfriend, and the fight had come out of nowhere and fried her nerves.

"Yeah, hi. What do you want?" Amber responded.

"You're kicking me out? I can't believe you!"

A long silence gave her time to recover her breath. But she felt like she'd been kicked in the gut and the air was knocked out of her perfectly healthy lungs.

Amber tsked. "That is what happens when you don't pay your bills. Did you want special treatment? Haven't I given you enough?"

"You've taken more than enough," she shot back.

"I had no choice. You needed to be put in your place and learn to behave. Obviously, your dad never disciplined you. Well, you want to get involved with my life, then I get to be involved with yours. Unless you want to back out of the spotlight?"

Shilo closed her eyes, hands clenched. She could forget about all this and be left alone, never have to deal with the Largos again. Amber was giving her an out.

"Why exactly are you doing this?" she asked.

"You kidding? You stole from my collection. That's part of my father's legacy. You took it and shared it with my adoring public, turning them against me." There was a tremor in her usually steely voice. "Did you even have anything to gain?"

Shilo's cheeks burned. A dead little girl, and Amber was whining about loss? Then again... Amber had sounded young on the film. She calmed herself by bringing Nathan's memory to mind. "This whole house was my dad's. I can't afford it, and if I'm on the streets, you won't be able to keep track of me. Can't we come to an agreement?"

Breathing covered the silence as Amber Sweet thought it over. "Shilo, Shilo, Shilo. I was just thinking we should spend more time together, baby. But you gotta stop with the personal attacks. I don't do it to you, after all."

Not that there was anything Shilo could be slandered with. "Deal."

"I know a place in town where you could stay, free of charge. It's slightly more upscale than you'd be used to. And once you have the money to get out of my hair, your house will be waiting for you."

"That... that would be amazing."

"Yeah, well don't say I never gave you nothing. Fuck, Luigi'll be pissed. I'll deal with him. Pack your bags, and we'll go over house rules once you get here." Shilo readily and eagerly agreed, and Amber interrupted, "I'm not only doing this for you. You've been a pesky bug of a girl and I need you under my thumb. You know what happens to bugs who get in my way?"

"Squish?" Shilo guessed.

"Abso-fuckin'-lutely."  
  


* * *

  
As it turned out, she didn't have to deal with Amber right away. She was out. All the Largos were, in fact. The enormous manse was not up for exploration, regardless; all the doors were locked, and Shilo was certain the staff had been instructed to keep an eye on her.

It was more luxury than Shilo could have imagined. There was a hedge maze and several grand fountains on the premesis, populated by at least three gardeners, by her count. A butler let her into the house proper and took her hat. Maids in platform shoes and lacy, barely-there aprons helped carry her belongings up to her new room, and she was amazed.

It was blue, the color of the sky at night, and unbelievably, ornately decorated. Her stuffed animals looked out of place here, but she took care setting them up, grateful for their familiarity. She could lock the door if she wanted, and then require visitors to buzz in over an intercom so she could give them permission to enter. That was just cool. The enormous window fed out onto a balcony overlooking the gardens. The bed was enormous, the sheets silky and soft. Everything was immaculate and seemed to gleam, even in the dark. Amber was pulling out all the stops to impress her, and it was working.

Amber came in after three in the morning. She turned on all the lights and danced in, laughing and singing shrilly at the top of her lungs. Shilo went outside her room, creeping close to the ground like a little girl anticipating an interesting fight between parents.

Amber Sweet was a hot mess. Her red hair had been perfectly coiffed at some point, but some grope session had undone most of the work. She had either been dancing or under the knife, judging by her limp. Still, even a wreck, she was glamorous, put together, and impossibly sexy.

Pavi slammed the front door behind her, obviously drunk but less so than his sister. He had no face. It was just raw meat, the exposed scar tissue from some freak accident. Shilo gagged.

"Sister, please be keeping quiet," he warned her, looking around. She waved him off. He shrugged dramatically and dropped his coat on the floor.

"I love you, Pavi," Amber squealed, squeezing her arms around his neck. Her legs shook and gave way, forcing him to support her weight.

He cleared his throat nervously. "You need to get up to bed!"

"That's not fair! I want to go out dancing more. Daddy would have said yes, Pavi, he would've written me a big fat check and let me do whatever I fucking want!"

He guided her to a wheelchair and she clapped her hands, demanding they have a wheeled race. He paused to roll his eyes at the ceiling before returning his attention to his inebriated little sister.

A hand settled on Shilo's shoulder and she startled horribly, biting her lip to keep from shrieking. Luigi went to one knee to watch the scene with her.

"Enjoying the show?" he snarled.

"I, um, I'm..." Her eyes quickly scanned his frame. He couldn't possibly be armed in pajamas, right? That would be crazy. "I'm s-so sorry."

"Wallace, I am not thrilled that you're here." He squeezed her shoulder hard and leaned in, baring his teeth with each spat word. "This is my family, and you're fucking privileged to be here. You fuck with us, or use what you just saw against my sister, and I will fucking _end_ you. I'm the one in charge here, and you WILL listen to me."

His voice was rising, and she glanced downstairs at where Amber and Pavi had been. And weren't, anymore.

He shook her a little to get her attention. "Right?"

"Yes, yes, I can be quiet," she blurted.

He let go and stood up. His face was frozen in that scowl. She went to her room, feeling along the walls to help guide her way in the dark. She was sure he was still glaring at her, could feel the hate of it even with the door closed, even with the nightlight in, even with the covers drawn up to her chin.

Snapping fingers woke her up. She sat up, blinking in the light. A woman with lightly curled red hair in a gossamer violet dress pointed at her, and a maid set a tray down on her lap. Pancakes with butter and syrup, fresh fruit, bacon. She looked up. Amber deigned to give her a small smile, which she took as permission to eat breakfast. The maid scurried away, and Amber sat down on the bed, at the girl's feet. Shilo kept her eyes down at the tray, but she was sure that there would be dark shadows under the woman's eyes, and there was a sick smell covered up by perfume.

"I understand you saw something last night."

"No, I didn't. It was definitely a dream," Shilo said, setting the tray aside. She felt shy being in her pajamas around Amber Sweet, and the woman's green eyes were boring into her with chill intensity.

"Of course." Amber touched Shilo's leg under the covers, and the girl pulled back slightly. The heiress turned her head at an angle the way a dog might and smiled. "It's not so bad having you here. You're quiet. Cute, in a sad way."

Shilo acknowledged this with a dumbfounded stare. She didn't trust this.

"If you're going to be living with us, we need to go over some rules. One, don't look behind closed doors. There are things that you'll be wise to leave alone." Shilo knew that was a rule she'd be breaking constantly. She couldn't resist. But she nodded politely. "Two, leave my reputation alone. Whatever beef you have with my company, leave it at my company. Go after GeneCo, if you have to waste your energy on something, and leave us Largos alone."

It pained her to admit it, but she was right. A smear campaign against Amber and her brothers didn't help her at all. If she was worthy of being that champion for her father's dying wish, then she could do so properly. Honestly. Without insults or propaganda.

"It won't happen anymore," she promised.

"Three, you need to take care of your health. Yes, I know you've been sick," Amber said in response to the girl's puzzlement. "Who do you think's been diverting the media's attention? I don't want them thinking I hurt you, just like I didn't want them to see you sleeping on the streets on my watch. You're like my baby sister, and I have to take care of you."

"So I have to see a surGEN?" Shilo said warily.

"'fraid so, precious. Within the week, if you possibly can. I know your schedule's _so_ busy. Finally, and maybe most importantly... I don't want to see Graverobber in your room, in your bed, really, anywhere on the property."

Shilo blushed. "What, um, what are you talking about?"

"Don't play dumb. I have eyes all over this city." She folded her arms smugly. "He's a criminal. Orders are to shoot him on sight."

"I'll... I'll tell him."

Amber gave her a hug that was much too tight and then left. She didn't lock the door as Nathan always had, yet Shilo still had the feeling of being confined. It was ridiculous; she could get up, eat at her leisure, dress, wander the huge and gorgeous property. She could do nearly anything.

The world was at her fingertips. Wasn't it?  
  


* * *

  
In the blurry calm of night, with only Pavi out of the house and unaccounted for, Shilo stuck a pin through a bug, working by a lamp. The room was mostly dark, and she hunched over her desk, tongue between her teeth in concentration. A scratch, a clatter, the sound of weight dropping onto stone broke that concentration, and she gasped in alarm, dropping the second pin. The sound had come from her window, and she heard metal twist in the lock. The window opened.

"Hey, kid," Graverobber said with a grin. He'd somehow climbed up, gotten over her balcony, and jimmied the lock. How had he even found her? She pushed away from the desk and got to her feet, stunned that he'd shown up. Surprising her, as always.

He had flowers, pink cosmos tied with a ribbon, and he offered them in supplication.

She held them, her heart pounding in her ears. "Graverobber? What are you doing here? You're going to get in trouble."

He shrugged, as if that wasn't important. "I had to see you. I had to tell you that I've taken some things you said into consideration."

"Huh?" It took her a moment to get that he was talking about their fight. Why was he dredging that up now? She placed the flowers on the bedside table, nervously avoiding his gaze. She wondered if he was going to yell at her and get them both in trouble. "Oh. I haven't been thinking about it at all lately. Guess I've been busy."

Truthfully, she hadn't been thinking about him much, either. This sudden appearance brought the full force of her feelings for him, emotional and otherwise, right back. She'd never stopped liking him. But life was diverting, and... well, she hadn't exactly forgiven him for all the things he'd said.

He chuckled quietly. "You were right, by the way. I don't know much about you or what you've been through, beyond the headlines." With a few quick, bold strides, he was right by her, taking her hand. "But I want to know you."

"You do?" She looked up into his eyes hopefully.

"Yes. If you'll permit it," he said a touch too loudly, and she shushed him, her eyes darting to the door. It was closed and locked.

"Graverobber, this is wonderful- _you're_ wonderful, but you can't be here. You'll get in trouble!" she whispered frantically.

"That's what everyone keeps telling me," he smirked. "I can't help myself." The smoldering heat of his gaze made her shiver, and he noted the reaction, whispering, "We'll just have to be very quiet, won't we?"

She nodded solemnly. He bent, and for a maddening moment she thought he was going to kiss her throat, but no; he picked her up easily, lowering her onto the bed. He joined her, sitting up and looking down at her reclining body, and his hand went to her neck, playing, marking a line down from her chin to her collar.

"How was that necessary?" she asked.

"What?" He guided her hands to his neck so she could take off his scarf.

"Picking me up. Putting me on the bed." She shook his hands off of hers and worked on the buttons on his yellow shirt. "To show me you're strong?"

"No, no." He shrugged out of the shirt and grinned at her awed reaction. Graverobber was muscular and not as pale as she would've guessed, and she never would have expected chest hair to be a quality she'd find attractive.

She blinked rapidly and was just a tad breathier than prior. His shirt went to the ground without a second thought from either of them. "Then why?"

"It's romantic," he purred, lowering himself over her. He supported his weight with one arm, and the other went under her neck as he licked up the side. She gasped and his chuckle reverberated through his body. "Aren't we supposed to be quiet, Shi?"

"Yeah," she agreed. His hand travelled to her shoulder, nudging down the straps of black fabric. She murmured, "What are we doing?"

He pressed a kiss to her bare shoulder and rose enough to pull the shirt down to her waist. "Shilo..." His eyes raked her nearly bare torso, and she blushed, pleased that his smile had vanished. "I've had you down to bubbles before."

"Those were extreme circumstances," she said. "Being covered in gore isn't... isn't a nice feeling."

"Hey." He kissed her belly, hands smoothing up and down her sides, edging around to her back. "Let's not think about that."

"Okay." She closed her eyes as his fingers fiddled behind her back, unsnapping the garment covering her breasts. Held her breath.

"Fair warning... you might want to do this," he told her, taking her hand and placing it over her open mouth. She opened her eyes just as his mouth, that painted and devious mouth, closed over her breast in a soft wet kiss. Her back arched, and she gasped again and again into the palm of her hand, unable to stop herself. He drew back, dragged his tongue up her nipple before taking her breast back into his mouth, suckling delicately. A scrape of teeth. Hot breath on her skin. Her eyes scrunched tight, she removed her hand, grabbing at his dreadlocks and twining them between her fingers. She pulled.

He looked up curiously.

"Please kiss me," she begged, and his eyes were lidded with desire. He crawled slowly up her body, letting her feel their skin touch, that new sensation and connection, before taking her mouth. She blossomed for him, letting him explore her lips. Hands encompassed her cheeks, holding her there as he drew her into that kiss.

Instinctively, her legs went around his waist, pulling him closer. His breath staggered deliciously, and she had done that! He dragged his hands clumsily down, down to her breasts, down to her skirt.

"Move your... gorgeous... legs down for a sec, or I'll have to tear this off," he growled, and she did, her own breath ragged and her heart pounding out a wild beat. She felt like she was on fire. She felt like she was going to explode. The instant her legs were horizontal again, he unzipped her skirt, tugged it off.

It was then that her head cleared slightly from the haze of hormones. He knew what he was doing, and she clearly didn't. It was easy to lie back and let him do what he wanted; it did feel insanely good. But she was nervous, not because it was anticipation of the unknown, but because this was a lot.

For her, anyway.

He moved down her body, placing wet kisses as he went. He reached the edge of her underwear and flopped to his side, his weight on one arm. He rested for a moment, looking at her thoughtfully.

"Graverobber," she said quickly, before he could distract her. "What are we doing?"

He considered the question ponderously. "Why, I thought I might kiss you."

Hadn't he been kissing her? "Kiss me?"

He touched the inside of her thigh, wiggling his finger up teasingly. "I'll be gentle."

Her legs closed sharply, and she had never blushed so hard in her life. "People do that?" It wasn't so hard to believe. If her breasts were so sensitive to his tongue, imagine- "Are you pulling my leg?"

"No, Shilo. I'm stroking your leg. Your thigh, to be precise."

"I'm serious!" she hissed, sitting up.

He grinned at her. "Yes, people really do that. But I'd be happy just to do this." He took her chin, brought her forward to a kiss. Her hand went flat against his chest, and she sighed softly, happily.

His hand rested on her leg and slowly went up, massaging the skin, until he reached where her thighs joined. Her arms went around his neck, and she buried her face against his shoulder bashfully.

She felt like she should say something. Ask him what exactly he was going to do, or if he liked her body, or if what he was planning on doing would hurt or not. Instead, she waited, leaned herself against him, and listened to his breaths. She thought they might be more comfortable lying down, but she felt close, sitting up and all but in his lap like this.

His fingers moved gently over the fabric once. "You're very..."

"Yes?" She closed her eyes at the sensation, shivering.

"Wet. Feels like it."

It was like there were two heartbeats, one in her chest, one close to his hand. Before he could do anything beyond that lightest of touches, however, there was a knock at her door. She shuddered and pushed away quickly; he hopped off the bed, looking around curiously.

"SurGEN here," a male voice said, and Shilo freaked out. Graverobber was less so.

"You have to hide!" she whispered insistently, picking up his shirt and scarf and shoving them into his arms. "No time to dress, you just have to disappear!"

"Kid. Kid, there's nowhere for me to go," he hissed in her ear.

She grabbed his hand and dragged him to the other side of the room as the knocks continued. "Into the fucking closet. _Now_ ," she ordered. He hid amongst her clothes, but she pushed him back further. "Please, please be quiet, whatever you do!"

"Miss Wallace?" the doctor called. "You said to get back to you immediately."

"Um, just a second!" Shilo said, straightening out her sheets and getting back into her clothes. She leaned one hand on the door and concentrated on bringing her breaths back to normal. She let him in.

She was comfortable around him from the start. He wasn't a sexualized fantasy of a doctor. He was just a normal person with a friendly smile and thinning hair. He wore a clean white coat over a green shirt, and he wore actual glasses. Not a monocle, not sunglasses. It humanized him incredibly, and she wondered if he actually did surgeries.

"Hello," she said. "Sorry. Sorry, I was, um, working." She waved an arm at her bugs.

"I see. Well, why don't you take a seat and we'll discuss the results of your blood test."

She sat down. "You can sit, too. There's a chair." Normally, she wasn't this awkward at social interactions, but she had just been doing things of a very intimate nature with Graverobber, who was hiding in her closet. That was a good enough excuse, in her view.

"Why, thank you." He pulled out her chair and sat in it the wrong way, without turning it around. "So you're in remarkable health. Most seventeen year olds would have much more extensive issues than a flu. We're talking about multiple organ failures, STDs, you name it. The duration of your sickness was unusual, but your immune system will benefit, in the long run."

"That's great! Nothing weird turned up?" she said, just to make sure.

"Eh... You said that you've never used Zydrate of any grade?"

"Yeah. Never have, never will. Why?"

"It did turn up in your blood work. It wasn't like any variant I've encountered." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I would guess that the contaminant was what made you sick, in combination with the Zydrate. It was hitchhiking with the painkiller, if you will. Your body would treat that as a foreign invader-"

"I know, I know." Her dad had given her that talk about how diseases work and are combated by white blood cells a thousand times. "I've never taken Zydrate. This doesn't make any sense. Like, at all."

He looked at her sympathetically, not quite believing her. "In any case, it should be out of your system soon."

She frowned. "You don't believe me?"

"The alternative is that someone gave you Zydrate without your knowledge." He smiled, like this was the most unlikely thing in the world. And it was. But her mind catapulted into the past's recent events in sudden paranoid fear. No, it wasn't the most unlikely thing, but how terrible if it was true. She wrapped her arms around her stomach, not from pain but there was still an agony. "Shilo? Everything okay, sweetie?"

"Yeah," she said weakly. "I'm fine. Everything's... um, thank you. I really appreciate it." They stood up. She shook his hand. "Just one thing. Was it, you know, street Z?"

"Seemed to be."

The puzzles were struggling to fit into place. She didn't want understanding. She didn't want to know this. She showed him out and locked the door.

Dizzy going through Graverobber's bag. Dizzy taking her blood, with no results, never any results. Little communication at all, left in the dark. Getting sick out of nowhere, and Dizzy's genuine fright from that, her talk about lab rats. She fought hard not to become a blubbering mess. She was one of Dizzy's lab rats.

Graverobber stepped out of her closet grimly. "Kid?"

She stared at him. "You lied to me."

"What?"

"Everyone else has lied to me. I thought you were different. I thought you would never do that, but you lied. Were you in on it? Did you help her p-poison me?" she sputtered in terrified outrage. He took a step toward her, and she took a step back. She'd have none of it. He couldn't make this go away with pretty words.

"No! How could you think that?"

"Tell me the truth!" she demanded, raising her voice. "Damn it, Graverobber, I need to know!"

"Fine!" he said. "She went behind both our backs to make you sick. She wanted to make money or power or, I don't know, a fucking _reputation_ with this new plague. I found out about a week before she died, and that's it. She got what was coming to her, okay? She deserved every cut."

She sobbed tearlessly. How could he be so horrible, saying _anyone_ deserved that death? How could he? How well did she know him, really? "You still lied to me about her! You didn't tell me when it was just the two of us, when we found her body. You let me think she was a good person, that it had anything to do with me. You let me think I'd lost someone who c-cared about me! Fuck..."

"It has everything to do with you! How could I-" He sighed, hand to his forehead in frustration. "You're right. I lied to you."

"Every man I've ever trusted lied to me. You know that's a little bit of an issue with me," she said sarcastically. "How can I believe anything you tell me? Are you just trying to sleep with me?"

"Shilo, I can get sex anywhere," he said with a mean smile. "You'll just have to trust me."

"I can't! That's the point! You could have told me any time, but I had to _find out!_ If I can't count on you for that, I don't want you here."

He frowned and reached for her; she pulled her arm away. "Shilo..."

"Get the _fuck out of here_!" she screamed.

He looked defeated and angry about it as he headed for the window. There was no departing glance full of regret. He just vanished into the night as suddenly as he'd appeared.

 


	19. Reveries and Revelations

The girl had emerged from her prison to skyrocket to fame. Public appearances, speaking to crowds, autographs, tours of hospitals, schools, living facilities, all neglected and in disrepair. Then, just as she had established herself as a presence in the city, Shilo Wallace withdrew from the public eye quite suddenly. She stayed at the Largos, not confined at all but locked away by her own volition. If the world had grown too frightening, or if the little lady was tired, the people hadn't a clue.

Her absence did nothing to halt the movement that was building in her name. Her name and image swept over the city. There was graffiti, of course, but there were posters plastering the walls and billboards in the sky; bands dedicated sets to her, and the digital copy of her tearful farewell to her father was a top seller. At Shilo's request, Amber diverted the proceeds, as well as any donations or gifts, to charities. A portion quietly went into Sweet's pockets. It baffled Shilo how many people continued to send letters, often with a five dollar bill stuffed into the envelope. As if there weren't tragic heroes, as if there weren't young girls without fathers, as if there weren't people protesting the way of the world.

Graverobber looked up at an image of Shilo smiling, the smile not quite reaching her dark and sober eyes. It made him stop and lose all thought of where he was and what he was doing (the crypts, and looking for clothes, Zydrate, and valuables). He couldn't get away from her, even in the middle of the quarantine zone. Dead bodies in this mass weren't safe. He figured the advertisements wouldn't reach this far. Not that they were adverts, unless Shilo was a product, and what was she marketing? Hope?

He shook his head and threw open the heavy crypt doors and barreled in, the moonlight showing him a path down into the gloom. He'd had to break through a lock on the doors, an actual padlock meant to keep out his ilk. Such precautions only encouraged and enticed him. Locks were like magnets to robbers, suggesting riches worth locking up inside. Empty, sprawled bodies covered the dirt outside, and he hadn't bothered with them. They were picked clean, useless to him, and he'd walked on their slippery flesh to reach the underground crypt.

A veritable vault, and it was a cave of marble and granite. Bodies were propped up on the walls, helpfully labeled with their names and death dates, circling the two bodies on sarcophagi in the center of the room. A family, he guessed, sentenced to an eternity of rotting together. The air was thick with their stench, putrid in the stale, hot air. The bodies were gold and sunken, the skin sucking against ribs, skulls, joints. The two in the middle were matriarch and patriarch, brittle skeletons in out of fashion clothing. Their hands were dust with gold rings, which he freed. Liberated, also, were a good deal of money, three vials of Z, and a blue waistcoat.

He nearly took a necklace for Shilo. It was beautiful, a silver circlet with a red sapphire at the end, like a drop of blood. He could envision it at her collar, the contrast to her skin startling and bright. He left it alone, reminding himself that it wasn't that way, and even if she still wanted him around, she wouldn't wear it. To her, it belonged here, with the dead. He left that necklace on the lifeless neck of that wealthy woman. The money he'd found would more than cover the next few month's expenses. He didn't really need to pawn jewelry.

For the moment he would say farewell, farewell to the lonely rich in the dank underground. It was kind of him to let in some air for them, and in return, he'd return to partake of their buried wealth. It wouldn't be a bad place to bring a girl. There was a cushioned bench perfect for resting with an arm over a young lady's shoulders... and there, his mind stopped still, not letting him go on because such scenarios only ever focused on one girl, now, and he wouldn't let himself think about her. The mud and dust gushed at his feet as he ascended the stairs and disappeared in the dark, leaving the crypt doors open.

He'd lost her.  
  


* * *

  
Shilo walked the halls at night, when everyone was sleeping and she could explore. The place was too populated during daylight hours. Maids bustled about with feather dusters and cleaners; the siblings brawled and made up comically; socialites and the elite of the business world toured the place, hosted graciously by Amber Sweet. It was only late at night that Shilo could be herself and be alone. During the day, she was a trinket, a novelty to be shown off. That was a little of why she'd withdrawn from the outside world. She was tired of the attention.

Pavi had hinted at the existence of a room once designated for Marni, and she was determined to find it. She trailed her hand along the wall without necessity, somewhat familiar with the grand estate. As she approached Amber's room, she heard a noise. Not sleeping or music or the breaking of glass, but layers of human noises. The door wasn't closed all the way, and she pressed her eye to the crack between the door and the wall.

Luigi had Amber by the hair, controlling her, moving her to the bed. Amber was clawing at his chest and trying to maneuver her body into a more powerful position. At first, Shilo thought they were actually fighting, and that the grunts and snarls were angry noises. She looked over her shoulder and wondered if she should get some help. Security? Pavi? Someone? Glancing back nervously, she saw Luigi rip off his shirt for no apparent reason. Amber smiled gloatingly and dragged him down to her by his belt buckle, and when he collapsed, he let his hands grope her writhing body, and his teeth marked her mouth.

Ew ew ewwww. Ew! They were loud enough not to notice a thing when she firmly closed the door. Her hands covered her mouth, and there wasn't an image in the world that could ever undo that one, what she'd just seen. She backed away. Siblings. They had the same father and they were doing _that_? That was completely sick!

Unless she'd... misunderstood that, or something. It could be innocent, for all she knew. She really doubted it. She shook her head, trying to dislodge the revolting memory.

Amber hadn't been kidding about leaving closed doors alone, even partially closed doors. Yeah, that was definitely in everyone's best interest if she actually did that from now on. She could ask about Marni's room in the morning. Everything could wait until morning. Grossed out in what she hoped wouldn't be a permanent way, she hurried away from the scene of that crime against nature.

The garden was beautiful by night, the grass not yet graced with dew. Leaves crunched, and more willowy plants sighed and swayed in the gentle breeze. She looked around. There were red roses, insistent, bold, and she was drawn to the green there. She touched the petals, turned a flower's face so she could smell it. People took for granted that they could simply smell flowers. It was a novelty to her.

She almost dozed off on a nearby porch swing. The cold was comforting. A rose poked at her nose, and she startled to attention. Pavi offered her a fresh cut flower. His new face was better than when he went without, and it was easier to smile at. She took the flower and scooted over so he could sit.

"Lovely-a evening, no?" he said sweetly.

"I guess."

He pushed at the ground with his heels lightly, and they rocked in silence. She touched the flower, running her index finger over the thorns.

"If you pick at the petals, they will tell you something," he told her.

"What is that?"

He reached over, demonstrating by pulling out two petals. "She loves me," he pronounced with the first, and to the second, "she loves me not. See? It is done with daisies, but roses have-a petals, too."

She tugged out the petals, amazed at how they went in layers around and around the bud. "He loves me, he loves me not," she started uncertainly, and Pavi gave an encouraging grin. Not that he could do much else. "He loves me, he loves me not... Um, who exactly does this?"

He shrugged. "Little children. Lovesick girls. You are a girl, the Pavi supposed you could be a hopeless one. Romantical."

Graverobber would like roses. A little thorny, and very beautiful, like him. She could pretend to herself that she didn't care, but... It didn't matter. She'd trusted him, and he'd lied to her to protect himself and a woman who didn't need or deserve protecting. He'd betrayed her. First, he'd tried to push her faster than he should have, and then she found out the truth from someone other than him. He'd had his chance. She tore at the petals and settled back in the seat. He'd hurt her, so why did she feel lightheaded thinking about him?

It was stupid of her. She knew it was, and she couldn't help it. Pavi could see it; might as well admit it to herself. "Um, I think you're right."

Pavi put his arm around her. "The Pavi always is!"

She glared at him. "By the way, I have mace hidden somewhere on my person where I can get it really easily if I need to. Don't make me use it," she threatened.

He smiled genially. "Smart girl. Then, you were not thinking of..?"

"The Pavi?" she snorted. "No. But I hate him. And this is just a flower. It doesn't mean anything."  
  


* * *

  
The driver wanted to know what the destination was this evening.

Shilo thought for a moment, pulling her hat down over her eyes to block out the glare of the setting sun. It'd be dark soon, and she was skipping out on some boring meeting Amber had arranged. She hadn't cared about the details, barely paying attention. A conference, men in suits, blah blah blah. She'd been daydreaming the whole time about doing just this: ditching to go be by herself, leaving Amber to deal with the meeting herself.

The funny thing was, Pavi knew where she was going, and he hadn't exactly tried to stop her. She'd tiptoed out to the front door, and he'd pushed it shut, appearing out of nowhere.

"Where are you off to?" he'd asked, his hand running down her back, just past the boundary of inappropriate.

She wiggled away from the attempt and answered, "Out. You aren't going to tell Amber, right?"

"Pavi doubts she will-a care." He let her open the door again, smacking her ass to push her outside.

She didn't trust him, but it didn't matter. The driver would take her orders over Amber's, and even if Amber ran out after them screaming, it wouldn't matter. They were going, leaving the estate.

"Anywhere that Amber wouldn't go," she told the driver.  
  


* * *

  
Graverobber's heart wasn't in it, and it wasn't her fault. She was nice enough. The green-haired girl tipped a glass full of sweet intoxication to his lips, and he obligingly drank. The alcohol slid cleanly down his throat, not syrupy and thick like some drinks.

"What's your name again?" she asked, taking his hand and placing it under the table, on her thigh. The furnishings were all black in this particular club, dark stone tables and dark leather seats, booths cozily set against the wall. It was light enough to see that she was surgically altered. Makeup smoothed over what the scalpel hadn't perfected.

"Don't have one. I'm a criminal," he said with a smirk. "known this whole city over. Notoriety made me give up my name at gunpoint."

Her hair was in ridiculously huge pigtails, and her eyes were lined with glittering blue. He was sure it wouldn't be difficult to get an invitation back to her place and into her bed. He squeezed her thigh and she reacted with a pleased smile. She poured herself another glass and licked the rim suggestively.

"I bet," she laughed, leaning against him.

He wanted to forget dark, sleepy, quiet eyes and warm little hands. He wanted to forget, so he found a lonesome corner to take this unwholesome distraction. He didn't play the card of a scorned lover, or boast about his dangerous and often upsetting life, but he always thought women had this way of sniffing out tragedy. If it hadn't been this girl, it would've been someone else.

If only it could be someone else. He didn't watch her drink. He didn't watch her adjust her breasts in the corset. This wasn't working for him.

"Hey, is that Shilo Wallace?" she asked loudly, startling him. "Shit, I think it is."

He looked up.

Shilo was shown in, blinking in the light. She held a red bag in her hands to match her hat and tights, and she looked around in wonder, seeing everything for the first time. She took enjoyment in everything, and of course she did. Her life hadn't had much enjoyment. Then her eyes met his, and she gasped, turning on spiky heels to flee. He shot up out of his seat and ran to stop her, grabbing her arm, catching her.

"Shilo!"

"Let go!" she yelled angrily.

"Please don't leave." He lessened his grip, not wanting to bruise her. Some of the rigidity in her stance bled away, enough for him to know all was not lost.

"I'm not talking to you, Graverobber." He smirked. Well, that wasn't true, and he was about to say so, but she rolled her eyes. "After this, I mean."

He let go of her. "Fair enough. You were about to get a drink. Do just that, and I'll be over there." He pointed at his table.

"Yeah, I noticed. You replaced me already?" she said sarcastically, but there was hurt there, and disbelief. He swallowed.

"No. Never."

Looking down at her, seeing that she was wounded by him, it was difficult for him not to gather her up in his arms and offer words of comfort. She just... looked like she needed a hug. The point was, unfortunately, that she didn't want one, not from him. It didn't take a genius to see from her body language that she was holding back.

And still, between them, he felt that pull. She had to feel it, too, staring up defiantly. The moment passed, and she shrugged, walking away from him. He went back to his sort-of date, and Shilo found a table away from the dancing but where she could still tap her legs to the music. It was utterly adorable.

"You know her?" the woman asked in shock.

He disengaged, tensing up if she tried to cling to him or guide his hands into a caress. It might make Shilo jealous, which might be fun to see, but in all probability would make her storm out. This could be his only chance. His last chance. Why screw that up for an anonymous groupie?

"I do. We go way back." He smiled. "Before the opera that launched her career."

Only by a handful of hours, minutes at a time spent in her company as she tried to find her way home. She'd needed him then, badly, as a protector and a guide. Not so much now, and it was better that way. He knew that.

"Wow." She shook salt into her palm and lapped it up. She measured him, not calculating, just a rational appraisal of what was going on. He raised an eyebrow. "So, we aren't going to get out of here and fool around?"

"Sorry if I lured you here under false pretenses." She batted her eyes; no harm done or real disappointment there. "Are you going to throw a drink in my face?"

"I'd rather drink it. Thanks for the company, big guy." She kissed his cheek and sauntered off with her glass in hand, shaking her hips. She'd attract some bug-eyed man who'd be able to give her all the attention she clearly craved and deserved.

Now, Graverobber was not used to being ignored. Shilo, fortunately, wasn't good at ignoring him. She tried valiantly to pay no attention, but her eyes wandered, darting over to see if he was still there. His eyes would flicker to catch her, and his lips would twitch in an I-told-you-so smirk, and she would blush, looking away. She didn't know any better, and he blessed her for it in his thoughts.

This went on for a while, their little not-staring contest. He was winning the battle of wills, and with each embarrassed, hasty retreat, the icy exterior around Shilo Wallace was melting. The drinks she was pushing back in an effort to take her mind off of, well, him could only help his cause. He got up and made his way to her, wondering if she would greet him with a smile. No such luck. While alcohol did lubricate even the most delicate of social situations, Shilo was a tough nut to crack. She glared.

"Did you scare your date away?" she asked coldly.

He could tell right off the bat that she was exagerrating her ire. She was a poor actress who hadn't much practice with the fine art of lying.

"So venomous!" he tutted. "She was not my 'date.' Do you care?"

She looked away, her mouth pinched. "No," she said stubbornly.

He tilted his chin up, looking down at her as if to say, "Oh really."

"Maybe I do. Will you leave me alone now?" A gently spoken plea, one he could not listen to.

He shook his head. "I can't."

"Why not? What do you want, Graverobber?"

He extended an open hand. "One dance is all I ask, Shilo." One chance. And that dress she wore deserved to be on more prominent display. She stared reluctantly at his outstretched fingers, and hesitantly pinched her fingers around his.

"Okay," she conceded reluctantly, getting to her feet. She set her hat down on the table, hiding her purse under it. He led her across the floor, the music eating up the sound of her clicking heels.

People stepped out of his way when he passed; he had that intimidating way about him. She was uncertain, and he placed one of her hands at his shoulders. She'd never danced like this, and this wasn't normal for their location. They drew stares. He lightly touched her waist and held her other hand.

"What if I step on your feet?" she worried.

"I have big shoes. Don't worry." He smiled, and try as she might to hold her frown, a sparkle lit up her eyes. There was that expression he'd missed, right there.

They moved. He guided her, and he had to adjust his movements for this small partner, but grace kicked in, and it was the bastard son of a waltz and some exuberant goth dancing. He spun her out, his arm reaching, drawing her back in. She seemed amazed that she could move like this, that she could be light and delicate on her feet.

He moved her a bit closer, and the dance slowed. He couldn't tell if she was tired from the exertions or using it as an excuse to be close to him. She rested her head on his chest, and the movement of their feet lessened gradually into gentle swaying. He sang to her softly, intimately, conveying through song that he was sorry, that he missed her. Or something to that effect. The words weren't the important thing. Her eyes were closed. He squeezed her hand.

Yeah, she was asleep.

What else could he do? With everyone staring, he picked her up and carried her outside. There was a limo waiting for Shilo. Would wonders never cease? He woke her up gently. "This ride's for you, kid." The driver opened the door for her. She got in, but held the door open.

"I don't want to go back there," she said in drunk confusion. "Do you know somewhere I could sleep this off?"

Shilo showing up drunk in a house full of Largos. He could see why there would be a certain reluctance. He slid in. "Yeah, I know a place. Will cops burst in on us? I'm opposed to this evening ending with a fatality."

She shook her head. "No. It'll be okay. He's... my driver."

He doubted anyone who had been on Rotti's payroll could be trusted, but Shilo was drunk and falling asleep, and he couldn't carry her. Not that it was far. He closed the door, and in minutes, she was passed out on his shoulder.

Very little traffic, this late. The driver asked no questions, trusting the judgment of a seventeen year old girl, and a drunk one, at that. Graverobber would have to carry her in. He got out of the automobile, shifting the girl over his shoulder and kicking the door shut. She was tiny! Up the iron stairs, a moment of fiddling with the key, and into the apartment he called home.

Grey walls, beige carpet, dark furniture in shades of blue and black. An unassuming place, and nothing seemed to be disturbed since the last time he'd crashed here. He tried not to make a habit of it. Settling down in one place overlong made him a target. He trudged to the couch and set Shilo down. She filled it up snugly.

He went to the linen closet and fetched a heavy blanket for her. She scarcely woke up when the weight of it settled on her body.

"It's funny," he chuckled softly. "Someone used to do this for me." But he offered no other explanation, and sleep drew her under. Peaceful.

This meant he'd be going to sleep. At night. That was an unusual stretch from his routine, but he was always tired on some level. He went to the bathroom, brushed his teeth vigorously, and retired.

She came back to life hours later, having kicked off the blanket some time before that. Unfamiliar place. Think, Shilo, think... She hadn't been _that_ drunk. Oh, that's right. Graverobber had taken her here. Because she'd asked. She'd thrown him out and avoided him, and he'd still come through for her. Nothing to gain for him, either; he hadn't taken advantage of the situation, and there was nothing stopping her from leaving in the morning. To go back to her life without him.

She didn't want that. Her life was incredibly lonely without him. She hugged her knees, breathless when she thought about leaving him. It had been hard enough to give him up the first time, after her initial fury cooled.

She thought he'd lied to her because he didn't care. But that obviously couldn't be the case. This was his house, and he wouldn't trust her with that information unless he cared... a lot. As for Shilo's feelings... they had never diminished, but she'd refused to recognize them for what they were. It was more than caring. It was more than her body physically responding to his touch. More than that, more real and powerful than any emotion that had inhabited her heart before.

She found him sleeping soundly in a double bed in another room. She took off her shoes and laid down, placing his arm gently across her body. She trusted him, and he was there for her. Just like always. These thoughts felt like a promise, and with that tucked away inside, she closed her eyes and drifted off.

Never had a man woken up to a more delightful situation. Shilo was in his bed, snuggled up to him. He couldn't figure out what she was doing there, however, unless he'd been sleepwalking and, in that trance, had removed her from the couch and placed her in bed. Unlikely. She'd chosen this. That meant... was he forgiven? He touched her hair.

"Kid," he said. "Shi."

She stirred. "Mm..." And her eyes blinked open, all sleepy and sweet. "Hi."

"What are you doing here, kid?" he asked in bewildered wonder.

"I was lonely. I've been lonely without you."

He chuckled. "You? You're the most famous and beloved seventeen year old this city's ever seen."

"Yeah, but even surrounded by people, I was lonely. Missing you." She yawned. "Did you miss me, Graverobber?"

"More than you know." He sighed. Time to admit it all and hope it was enough. "There's a reason I didn't tell you the truth about Dizzy."

"Do we have to talk about this now?"

"Yes," he said sternly. "She was my friend, too, but you took to her like a cat to cream. I am well aware of the fact, the very painful fact, that you've been lied to by most everyone you considered important." He touched her cheek, wanting her to understand, wanting to undo that hurt. "I did it because I care about you. I thought it would be better if you thought- if you thought she was a good person."

She was quiet, her face still and unexpressive. "I used to wish things could go back to how they used to be. Before I knew about my dad, and everything. Now I know that's stupid. We have to see our lives and the people in them for how they really are, even if the truth isn't what we want." She kissed his hand. "Even if it breaks our hearts."

"Can you forgive me?" he asked.

"I forgave you last night, partly. Thank you, Graverobber. I do get why you did it, and I was stubborn. You didn't deserve that."

"Shilo, you deserve-" he said throatily, a little choked up. "You deserve so much more than what you've gotten."

She smiled weakly. "You're so corny. Um, Graverobber?"

"Yeah, Shilo?"

"You care about me, don't you?"

"Yes. Not only that; you're the _only_ person I care about. I took you here. That ought to tell you something," he murmured, bringing her body in close.

She closed her eyes, seemingly about to go back to sleep. The words tumbled out in one soft breath, "I love you."

He was startled, not expecting this. Not from her, not after everything. She didn't press him for a response, and he couldn't formulate one in this state of mindnumbing confusion. He'd never felt such affection. Pure ardor, but...

"I... like you very much. It could be love someday," he said. "I don't remember the last time I loved someone, or had someone say that to me."

"I didn't say it to hear it back. I said it because I felt it, inside." And he could almost feel the love exuding from her body, from the pulse at her wrist and the steady beating of her heart, from the red blood in her veins. He could close his eyes and almost sense the beauty of her love flowing out from her soul and into his, nourishing him, reviving him. "That's what it's called, isn't it? When all you want is to be with them, and- and take care of them," she admitted bashfully. "When you trust them."

"You do look like a woman in love," he told her. "It's okay, Shi. Let me hold you."

In a little while, they'd have to attend to reality. She had the Largos to answer to, and he'd have to find somewhere to hide during the obnoxious daylight. For now, it didn't matter. Whatever they were, it was perfect.

 


	20. Going Out With a Bang

"Really, Graves? Flowers?" Shilo said quietly to herself. His shower curtain had a floral print, and there were fresh, sweet-smelling flowers in a metal vase on the sink. To top the ridiculousness, the bathroom was a pretty, pastel yellow. Not only did it not fit the decor of the apartment, it didn't fit him. This was a girl's bathroom.

Or used to be. Shilo could ask him about it, if she wanted to. She undressed and removed her wig, setting it on the counter. As she did so, she caught a glimpse of herself in the fogged up mirror and gasped. It could have been a trick of the light. But what if it wasn't? Curiously, not daring to believe it, she rubbed the steam distorting her reflection with the palm of her hand. And there it was, on her scalp.

Hair, growing in, actually growing. She touched the fine fuzz on her head. It was real. Barely there, just a start, but there it was. She spent a good, long while examining herself, wondering how it would look as it came in. And wouldn't everyone be surprised? Graverobber... did he know she wore a wig?

Excited by these new developments, she stepped under the showerhead, daydreaming about when she could wash her hair. It had been awesome enough waking up in Graverobber's arms and talking to him so freely and intimately, but this really took the cake. It gave her confidence in the future, in her future, personally. Her mind wandering back to Graverobber, she wondered what he was doing. Going through her purse for spare change, maybe. She giggled at the thought.

She snapped the water off, wrapped herself in a towel, replaced her wig, and stepped outside the girly bathroom to see what the man was up to. She confirmed that he wasn't still in bed, but that the sheets were very neatly tucked in. He was shockingly organized, considering how messy his job was. She hadn't expected his apartment to be so tidy. She peeked down the hall and heard exaggerated clattering and clinking meant to draw attention.

She found him in the living room, where the table had been set for lunch (they'd slept late). Graverobber was in the kitchen, his back turned. A ratty tablecloth, green plates with sandwiches, glasses of wine. She raised an eyebrow.

"You're giving me alcohol?" she said incredulously, picking up the glass.

"Hair of the dog!" he said cheerfully.

She hadn't had too much of a headache, and the hot shower had cured her of that. She sipped at the drink and made a face, quickly setting it back down.

"Shilo, what do you..." Graverobber's voice faded away as he took in what Shilo was wearing: a towel and nothing else. He blinked at her. "Is this a new look?"

"Oh, yes," she said with a laugh. "It's called 'I just got out of the shower.'" He kept staring at her, and she blushed. The towel felt secure enough, she supposed, but all it would take was one tiny tug from either of them for her to be totally naked. "And I'm gonna go change. Sorry."

"No, don't be," he interrupted. "I don't mind if you're not dressed. Hell, I encourage it."

"Give me two seconds. I'll be right back." She dashed back to where her clothes were waiting, giggling at his dramatic "Aww!" that followed. He'd made lunch. He'd actually made lunch, like they were a domestic couple or something. That's what they were: a couple. She smiled as she shimmied back into the same dress from the night before.

He even pushed in her chair as she sat down at the table. She'd only ever seen that in old movies. He took a seat beside her. She thought it was sweet until his hand patted her knee under the table. Ignoring it, she peeked under the top bread slice.

"What is this, lunch meat?" She took a bite.

"It was either that or plain toast." Undisturbed by her blatant lack of reaction to his petting, he removed his hand and devoured the sandwich in huge bites. She almost laughed, except she wasn't sure if he was rude or actually that hungry. She didn't touch the wine again and he asked anxiously, "Was the wine a mistake?"

"Maybe a little bit," she said. "You can have mine." She poured the drink from her glass into his.

"I have never woken up with a seventeen year old girl in my arms before."

"Oh." She pushed the empty plate away and interlocked her fingers in her lap. "So you do know how old I am."

"It doesn't bother me, and you're a big girl. You know what you're doing, right? If it was too much, you'd let me know. What I meant is that I liked having you there."

"No, I know," she said, gathering up the dishes and walking to the sink. "But you know I'm seventeen. You know I'm broke, and an orphan, and that I like bugs and you. What do I know about you, except that you sell Zydrate?"

He came up behind her and kissed her neck. She shivered. "What do you want to know?"

"I... lost my thought," she said, forgetting the dishes. She turned to face him. He didn't chuckle or grin or do any of those things that would indicate he considered her concern as anything less than serious.

"Think," he urged her. "Let's have it."

She frowned, wanting another kiss. "Fine. Um, is this really your house? It doesn't seem like you."

That was clearly not a question he wanted to answer. He shifted his weight from foot to foot as if he wanted to be somewhere else. Like he wanted to run away from it. "Because it's not. Friend used to live here, she'd let me crash in exchange for Z. And, before you ask, she was just a friend. No sex involved whatsoever."

"I wasn't going to ask!" Shilo protested. She wondered aloud, "What happened to her, then? Did she move out?"

"Do I have to say it?" He drew a finger across his throat. "Reposession. Lungs and nerves. It was a bloody mess, one of the worst corpses I've ever seen. She moved on, and I moved in. Not permanently, of course; it's here if I need it, a cozy hideout from cops."

She felt embarrassed for asking. He'd lost who knows how many people over the years. He'd been in this cruel world longer than she had. She said "I'm sorry," which seemed inadequate.

"It was a long time ago, kid." He shook his gloomy expression away. "We were close. Losing her was difficult, and reminded me not to..." He bit back the end of his sentence, obviously guessing that finishing it would have an awkward outcome.

But she guessed at it. "Not to get close?"

"Bingo." He crossed his arms and leaned on the counter next to her, staring at the ceiling. "I'm an observer, a shadow on the outskirts of all the action. When I get involved, matters become complicated and messy. It is therefore best to avoid such entanglements."

She was still with him, listening and trying to sort out her feelings of pity and confusion. She wanted to comfort him, to make it better, and she had no idea how to do that. All she knew was that sometimes, life had to be complicated. Having him in her life, for example, was a complication that she was immensely grateful for, and she wanted to show him that. He'd let her into his life in spite of these misgivings and insecurities. She could see now that had been a tremendous gesture.

"What about me?" she asked softly.

"You?" He shook his head. "I want you with me, but there's still no guarantee. Something could happen, and should that come to pass, I'll simply retreat to my place of anonymity in the shadows."

How very dramatic of him. She smiled a moment, then turned to the sink and wet the corner of a dishtowel. "Look at me," she told him. He did. She touched the damp fabric to his cheek, wiping away the makeup. "You aren't anonymous, Graves. You're famous." His skin was tan, uneven, and she ran more water in the sink, wanting to see more. "If anyone understands that it's scary being close to someone, it's me. Believe me, I get it."

He closed his eyes as she took off the paint bit by bit. He stopped her when she made to remove his lipstick. "I want to take this off on your skin," he purred, taking the dishtowel from her hand.

She stood on tiptoe to meet his lips. He looped his arms around her and lifted her up, not breaking the kiss. He put light pressure on her legs, and she followed the guidance, moving her legs around his waist, tight. Slowly, he walked through the apartment to his bed. Pity it had just been neatly made. He lowered her body and looked down at her with a smile that she could only describe as predatory.

"Wait, um," she said, sitting up and raising her hand in front of her to stop him. He sank to his knees as if the tiny gesture had vanquished him, and she touched his hair, stalling for time to think. "Don't we have to use something?"

He gawked at her. "Where did you hear about this?"

"One of your customers pulled me aside and said not to let you stick it to me without protection. And that you'd try to weasel out of using anything." She looked at him pointedly, maintaining an air of cool control even though her heart was racing. It was embarrassing enough to hear about this; bringing it up with him was even moreso. "I don't want to get pregnant, so if you don't mind..."

He shook his head, grinning. "Aren't you responsible. Very well, you twisted my arm." He meandered to the bedside table, opened a drawer, and tossed a paper bag on the bed. "Shi, am I your first?"

She scooted back on the bed, all the way against the pillows. "First what?" He kneeled beside her, tipping her head back and kissing her, pressing her down into the blankets.

"You know." His touch trailed down her side, stroked her leg, lightly squeezed her ass. "Are you a virgin?"

She nipped at his throat, grazed it with her teeth the way he'd done with her. She was rewarded with a choked breath. "Yeah, duh." She pushed him away gently to look into his eyes and ask, an uncertain quiver in her voice, "What's this going to be like? You've done it before, you'd know..."

"Yeah, but not as a girl," he chuckled.

She crossed her arms. "Graves!"

"Okay, okay. It'll hurt more than touching yourself. It..." He burst out laughing. "I'm giving you the sex talk? Is this actually happening?"

She kissed his forehead, smiling in spite of herself. He wasn't laughing at her, and it was a little ridiculous, but she didn't want to be taken by surprise. "It is if you want anything to happen past some awesome making out, dear."

"Dear?" he repeated. She waited patiently, and he finally had no choice but to go on. "It will hurt for you. I'm going on the assumption that you understand the basic mechanics, and believe me when I say that you will know what to do. Your instincts are a fantastic teacher. There's also a very real possibility that you could bleed, but I will do my best to make sure you're as comfortable as I can get you, and we will take things at a slow pace, if you'd like it."

She nodded. "Yeah, um, it was a little fast for me last time. Part of me wants to jump you right now, but... I'm kind of scared," she confessed. "You make me feel so good and alive, but it's there. I can't help it."

"It's okay. This is a big deal. No one's saying it ain't." He breached the distance between them to reassuringly touch her arm. "Do you want to do this?"

"Yes. I'm sure of it. Graves, if I want to stop, you have to." She made him cross his heart and hope to die that he would.

She helped him out of his shirt. "Does Amber ever do this?" she asked.

"You really want to talk about other girls now?" He nibbled her earlobe and she squeaked. He hauled her on top of him.

"Are there a lot of other girls?" She straddled him, placing her hands on his chest. She leaned in and kissed his throat.

"Yes... I've been a bad, bad man," he breathed. He touched her shoulders, her back, her hips. "Perks of the trade, you might say. Tokens for Zydrate. None of them... rival... you." As her tongue finished a particularly sinful arabesque, he groaned. "You tease."

She looked up from licking his chest to say: "I don't want you with other women. Just me, Graves, because you don't need to fuck them, not really. They could give you money, food, anything else. I'm not the sharing type."

"Okay," he readily agreed.

Her eyes were shining with lust, her smile eager, inviting. He kissed her again and again, holding her close, his need for her becoming increasingly urgent. And then she was pushing away.

"Wait, wait," she said. She laughed and added in answer to his pout, "I'm not saying stop, that's not it at all."

She sat up, unintentionally grinding against him. Her hands went to the back of her head, under her hair. She pushed up, and her hair- no, her _wig_ came away. Dark hair, soft and fine, covered her scalp, and she smiled bashfully, nervously waiting for his reaction. He grabbed the wig and tossed it aside, onto the ground. In wonder, he touched her head, the dust of brown hair.

"You don't mind that I'm bald?" she asked shyly.

"Are you kidding? It's adorable." She stuck her tongue out. "And you're beautiful."

He felt it, then, the shift when she became truly willing. Still terrified, still inexperienced, but it was easier, to pull her down and kiss her, to coax her out of her clothes. Shilo's clothes, always skimpy and yet entirely too much. He liked it better when her sallow skin was uncovered, liked the taste of it. He wasn't used to seeing girls naked in the noon light; usually, those were his sleeping hours. He was glad to be awake for this, for her young curves and slight frame. He hooked his thumbs into the waistband of her underwear and waited for her to stop him.

In answer, she pushed his hands down, dragging the silky fabric with them. He flipped her on her back and wiggled the panties down her legs, off at her feet. He waved them like a prize. She covered her eyes and giggled spastically, bordering on nervous hysteria.

"Shi, it's okay." He laid down by her, his head at her waist, head on folded arms. "I'm not going to hurt you."

"You said it hurts," she said, her voice quaking.

"There is pleasure in the pain. Let me show you."

"Okay."

He sat up, touched her thighs, spread her legs so she lay open and exposed for him. Every touch was smooth and careful, and he rubbed up from her feet, her ankles, her kneecaps, relaxing each part of her until she was comfortable with his touch when he finally reached for her, dipping his fingertips inside her. She gasped, and rather than try to penetrate her, he merely massaged at her entrance with his knuckles. She was insanely desirable, the way she tried to hold in her moans, her hips shaking.

"I'm going to try something. It'll pinch," he warned her.

Her breaths were loud now, eyes wide. He could practically hear her jackrabbit heartbeat. A fraction of an agreeable nod, and he moved his index finger inside her. She was plenty slick, and tight. Her muscles contracted, and his body ached for this, to feel this as intimately as he could. She'd shut her eyes and her body was shuddering, and he couldn't decipher if it was from pain or delight, but he cautiously pulled his hand back.

"Want to, uh, help me pick out a condom?" he asked casually.

She recovered after several heavy breaths, getting to her knees. He dumped out the contents of the crumpled up paper bag, and an assortment of wrapped up rubbers fell out.

She bemusedly picked through them, reading the labels out loud like she was discovering a new language. "Glow in the dark, spermicidal lubricant, ribbed... These ones are flavored? Why would they have to be flavored?"

He smirked at her. "Think about it."

She stared, and comprehension dawned. "Ohh... Okay, not those." She found a neon blue one and laughed. "This one, please! It's almost a Zydrate blue, isn't it?"

"It is," he remarked. "I always knew you wanted me to shoot you with my Zydrate gun."

She giggled at that line. He unbuckled his pants and disposed of them. She held her breath, watching as the boxers, too, came off.

"Um. You're big," she said. "That's..."

She was too nervous. If he didn't get this to stop, she'd freak herself out. And he obviously didn't want that. What if she overthought things, or talked herself out of it, called the whole thing off? He leaned on his side and said, "I want you to put it on." She crinkled the packaging at this pronouncement.

"Seriously?"

"Yeah, you just roll it on. It's easy." Then again, she'd never sat through an awkward sex ed class with bananas as practical aid... without that, or any basis of experience, perhaps it wasn't so easy. He helped her, and she was fumbling and shaking, but those were virgin jitters, not trepidation. He hoped. He asked, again, if she was absolutely sure.

"Yes. You don't have to keep asking me that. I really want you, I'm just..."

"Scared. I know." He tucked a pillow behind her head, kissed her. "It's not so bad. You're wonderful."

She kissed him hungrily, dragging him over her. He reached for her ankle, and she obligingly lifted her leg, locking it around him. Her breasts had been shamefully neglected, he thought, and he stroked them, kissed at the pale flesh. His tongue swirled around one soft nipple. She touched his hair and lowered her mouth to his ear.

"Now," she whispered urgently.

He obeyed that insistent command, and to the demands his body had been making for some time that he had quashed. He'd wanted to make sure she was satisfied and prepared, but his lust had hardened undeniably. He knelt between her legs, shifting her hips. His hands, on either side of her head, supported his weight. She sucked in a breath, and he pushed into her cunt, past her resistance. She cried out, quickly stifling it. She adjusted, and squeezed her thigh against him, urging him on. He'd broken her beautifully, and a sheen of tears covered her eyes.

Shilo gasped with each shallow, controlled thrust, and at first that's what it was: controlled. He pushed in, felt the tight, hot squeeze, and pulled back, almost out of her, so she keened softly in protest. Each thrust had a maddeningly steady, even quality to it, one that was lost when she joined him in the rhythmic movement of hips and limbs. She gripped the headboard and tucked her other leg behind his back, rocking in sync with his thrusts. He found an angle that drew more gasps from her, and she bucked wildly.

His breath haggard, he ran through every thought he could to keep from coming: headline news, garbage bags full of organs, uncooked chicken livers. He wasn't going to last. Luckily, Shilo's movements grew more desperate and raw, her moans loud. She cried out and he focused on her expression as she came, her mouth in a helpless, lovely 'o,' back arched sharply. And, God, she was pulsing around him, and he raised her hips to make the most of it as her orgasm shook them both. A few harsh, fast thrusts were all that he had left in him, and he groaned, burying his face against her chest. It was ecstasy too soon completed, and he collapsed on the sheet beside her. The muscles in his body were so relaxed he could melt.

He could hear her breathing. They were both slick with sweat and... other fluids, and he pulled off the condom, threw it in the wastebasket. He barely had the energy to stand, and all he wanted to do was sleep.

Shilo was curled up on her side, snuggling the pillow, and he joined her, tucking his arm across her belly, drawing her in.

"Sleepy?" he murmured. She nodded. It was nearly imperceptible. "I'll wake you before I leave."

But he lied. She woke up with the blanket folded over her naked body. Very much alone. She scanned the room for him, and she knew he wasn't there. It wasn't even dark yet, and he'd gone. He'd left her.

She crawled back into her clothes, humiliated and confused. Where the fuck was he?

No note in the kitchen. No explanation, nothing.

She tried to see his side of things. He wasn't used to being accountable to someone other than himself; he wasn't used to sleeping with a girl who wanted to know where he was; he wasn't-

Except he'd _said_ that he'd tell her when he was going to leave! She cleaned herself off in the bathroom, dismayed at the blood between her legs. He'd warned her about it, at least. God, she was impulsive, sleeping with him. Fucking him, actually, and then sleeping with him. She almost forgot her wig. Oops.

"Damn it, Graverobber," she snapped, foolishly hoping that if she banged about the apartment loud enough that he'd show up to make it all better.

He didn't.

She left and slammed the door.


	21. The End

He'd never been good at goodbyes, but one thing he was superb at was running away. Fleeing anything like the police were hot on his trail. He'd woken up and felt cold, unadulterated horror at what he'd done.

He'd slept with her after she said she loved him. That meant something. There would be consequences to fit the action. He might as well have anchored himself to her, and while a day ago the thought of being with her and her alone had haunted him in the best way, right now he was panicked. Shilo naked in his bed, expecting something he wasn't sure he wanted to give, even if he could. Tripping, stumbling out of the bed, a fucking coward. He shoved his limbs inside their vestments.

She'd be cold, waking up alone and bare. He covered her with a blanket and did the only thing he reasonably could. He fled. When he next became conscious of where his legs had brought him, he was in a dumpster, crouched between stuffed, ripe-smelling bags of garbage with his head in his hands.

What a fuck up. He couldn't very well go back, not with his head muddled with this uncertainty and terror. If he had her, truly and inexplicably won her, and then grew bored and left her after a few months, then it would be best for him not to go back at all. If, on the other hand, leaving was the bigger mistake, then... then... then it was too late to do anything about it, anyway.

A fly zipped about in the dark, buzzing desperately, trying to find a way out. He clapped a gloved hand around it tightly and looked into the hollow in his hand, between thumb and tightly curled fingers. A creature beat its wings against the cage, yearning for freedom. He asked the bug what he should do. It, of course, said nothing, and he let it go. It decided the appetizing trash wasn't worth the danger he posed, and Graverobber was left without a fly to speak to.

"Sad," he said. "and not helpful in the slightest."

An hour's contemplation later and Graverobber arrived at the unhappy conclusion that sleeping with Shilo may have been the mistake. _Being_ with Shilo, however, was not and never would be. She was an awesome kid- woman, he amended, thanks to him. He adored her so much he wanted to tear off down the streets screaming her name. Not that it would undo what he'd done and bring him back to her.

Two things, compounded, meant he was in a terrible pickle: sleeping with her, and then running off rather than dealing with the ramifications. He chose her, now and forever, and had to find a way back to her. Because she would be, he had no doubt, absent from his bed if he returned at this point. Absent, angry, and rightfully so.

How to solve this, how to mend this situation, he had no idea. Grand gestures seemed inappropriate, yet he couldn't wait this out as he had for previous arguments. Distance was not what she needed after vowing her love to him and giving herself over to him, trusting him with her body... No, making up for this transgression, for all previous transgressions, required a genuine sentiment.  
  


* * *

  
Shilo played with the fabric of her dress, waiting for Amber to speak. The woman sat at her desk, sipping tea through sparkly purple lips. They'd sat in silence, the elder summoning the younger not ten minutes after she'd arrived back at the estate. Shilo had glumly anticipated a lecture, or a good, hard slap. Instead, she'd been pushed into a chair and offered tea. Her hand shook too horribly for her to drink it, and it spilled.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said to the maid who quickly dropped to mop up the drink from the floor. "That was an accident."

The lady smiled briefly in response and whisked the cup away before more damage could be done. Amber set her cup down delicately and held out her hand; one of her henchgirls produced an electronic file. She looked through it, a frown spreading like a rash. Shilo fidgeted.

On the plus side, it was pretty much impossible to think about Graverobber when Amber was being dramatic and terrifying. Except she just had, and she huffed. Did that mean she didn't love him, because he'd left? Did that mean it was mistake? He always had an explanation, one that totally trumped her insecurities and showed how limited her perceptions of any given situation often were. She did have limitations, and it had nothing to do with her health. She was just seventeen. Empathy was not her strong suit, probably because she'd never had to deal with other people.

Waking up and feeling that panic in the moment before realizing he was gone had been weird, because she'd liked the sex, and that wasn't a mistake. She'd wanted it as much as he had, and it did make her feel different, more grown up and _more_ fond of him. But she'd still freaked out, that it had actually happened and she would have to live with that reality. Was it possible he'd felt the same? It wouldn't be an insult; he'd enjoyed it, obviously. Being with her like that, like he'd- like they'd _both_ wanted. Suppose he'd panicked, wondered if it was a bad idea, and handled that the only way he knew how: running.

That was exactly what she'd done. It was! She'd woken up, jumped to the conclusion that he'd abandoned her, in spite of everything, and gotten out of there as fast as she could. It stood to reason that he might have done the same thing, for similar reasons. Fear didn't negate attachment, it just made them human.

He said he'd always come to her. How did that poem go? _Though hell may bar the way._ She calmed herself and thought about how he'd wrapped his arms around her, how he'd said she was beautiful and that he wanted her with him. She wanted him to mean forever, but that would be girlish dreaming. She wondered if he could ever love her like she loved him.

"Where were you?" Amber asked coldly, snapping the teenager from her daydreams. "Out whoring?"

She offered a noncommittal shrug. "How was your meeting, Amber?"

" _Our_ meeting." She threw the file onto the desk, knocking her teacup over. Her cutting glare halted a maid from righting the spill. "Took me weeks to set up. I could have used you there. You're a strategic partner."

"You mean pawn. A chess piece," Shilo said sullenly. "The operative word is 'used' and I'm sick of it."

"Stupid little shit," the woman said, shaking her head. She left her desk and walked to an enormous armchair, dropping across it. She was high and weaving slightly. "I'm a manipulative bitch, but I ain't stupid. You want to know what the meeting was?"

"No," she said, but Amber continued talking over her, kicking her leg in the air, seemingly to admire her glittery black boots.

"Teleconference, the kind with voice and video that cost a thousand credits an hour. Not a local call," she informed the girl with the air of one imparting significant information. Shilo couldn't read a deeper meaning beyond the words, and what wasn't a local call? The outskirts of the city?

"What do you mean?" she asked uncertainly.

"Word of your exploits have gone a long way, baby," Amber crooned, pursing her lips. "GeneCo heard from the president. Know where he lives?"

"I- I didn't know we had a president."

"No, guess I should've expected that. You're so fucking ignorant," she snickered. "He lives far away. Over the water."

"That's not possible. There's nothing out there," Shilo said, confused. She'd seen where the world ended, and besides, she would've heard something. Graverobber knew everything worth knowing, and he'd told her there was nothing. "I've seen the end of the world. There's nothing but bodies."

"There are a lot of bodies, it's true. Shi, you read a lot, you know-" She paused to snap her fingers and shriek for ice water. A girl jumped twitchily and left the room to fetch water for the boss. She didn't continue until it was in her hand, and even then she complained about the number of ice cubes. Apparently, five was the perfect number. "You live on Sanitarium Island."

"I know..."

"Try to keep up with me. I know it's tough," Amber said. "This island houses how many millions of people, and all those people have to be fed and provided for. That means abundant resources. You think this place is self sufficient? You think we'd last a month all on our own? Fat lot I could do with my gold without food to eat!"

She digested this idea, adjusting all that she knew accordingly. There was a world out there, one she'd never seen or heard of. The plague... This island had either been isolated to contain the spread, or a separate cataclysm had wrecked the bridges after the entire world became, for lack of a better world, infected. GeneCo stayed here, ruling the island and influencing the world, trading its gold for the outsider's resources.

"What did he want with me?" she asked.

"What do you think? What everyone wants: to meet you." She laughed. "It's expensive like you wouldn't believe."

"Because no one ever travels between the mainland and here?" Shilo guessed.

"Exactly. There's enough fuel for all the travel we want, I guess, but there's fear of cross contamination or some shit."

"But you arranged it, right? You'll fly him out here?" She leaned anxiously toward Amber, hanging on every word like one of those ridiculous journalists.

"No, no. You don't get it. He wouldn't be leaving. You would. That takes care of my problems with you, your problems with my family..." She smiled contentedly, true peace on her lovely, designed features. "Think of it, Shilo. It would fix everything."

"What?" Shilo choked out. "Leave my home? I can't!"

"Oh? What's so important here?" With great effort, she got up and touched Shilo's shoulder without violence or sensuality. She hugged her around the neck. "Think of it. You could make your father's dreams come true. His daughter, escaping this depraved place for a chance at truly making a difference. You could change the world, Shilo, like you wanted to."

She relaxed. It was the right thing to do. She could feel it in her bones. "Would I ever get to come back?"

"I don't think so." Amber let go, stood back. "If you leave, that's it. I won't be hauling you back if you get homesick. And why would you?"

"Most of the time, I don't want to remember," Shilo said. "and when I do, it's as if I'm lying to myself."

"That's right. There's nothing for you here. Dead end jobs, your daddy's legacy, and me. Face it. If you wanted a family, you won't find one here. I'll never accept you. You're my competition," she hissed sweetly. "My brothers will ruin you. Pavi's itching for your face, and you'd be lucky if he stopped there."

"Okay. I'll do it." Uncertainly, she asked, "How do I know this isn't a trick to make me disappear?"

"I am making you disappear, but why kill you? That'd be a waste of a smashing body and mind. You'll remember when I was nice to you, if you end up in power, unlikely as I think that is." She adjusted her wristphone and played a snippet of recorded conversation from the night before.

A man's voice, authoritative and clear, declared that Shilo Wallace was creating a stir in the general population as well as his own household and he wanted her to do a tour of the country and speak before Congress. He sounded real.

"Is there surgery out there?"

"Everywhere. Why would anyone want to be themselves when they could be better?" Amber replied.

It was an obvious answer to everybody but Shilo. That was one of the good things she'd gotten from her captivity. Thank you, Nathan, for keeping me safe from this obsession with perfection, she thought to herself.  
  


* * *

_  
He was lucky. The graveyard air still carried the sweet smell of a funeral: incense and cheap flowers cast with reverence over the coffins. Like cheap sentiment would deter him. Graverobber kicked the lid off and hauled the body out. It had been neither freshly nor cleanly killed; maggots crawled out of the considerable incision in the man's gut. He'd been very efficiently disemboweled. Had to have been done by a Repo Man, from the look of that top notch work. Whistling, he unfolded his kit, plucked out his knife, and cut the body bag open to expose the face. Next came the needle, smacked up the corpse's right nostril into his skull. He watched the Zydrate flow into it, blue and clear and alluring, then roughly pulled it out. One vial down… And since Amber Sweet, the new head of Geneco, had the patrols look the other way at his preferred sites, he could take his sweet time gathering up the rest as he replenished his supply._

_But as he moved on to an unburied body, he noticed movement._

" _Who's there?"_

_A little girl was sitting on steps leading to a crypt. She didn't look away or move when he met her glance. Oh. Not a little girl at all. He ambled toward her._

" _Hey, kid." He pulled a vial off of his belt and waved it in front of her. "You ran off so fast that night, you forgot this."_

_Shilo Wallace had a book open on her lap and… was that a sandwich in cellophane? He smirked. She furrowed her brow and broke the gaze, looking down at her book._

" _What, don't I even get a 'hello?'"_

_She stared at the page too long for her to really be reading it. "You're disgusting. Don't you even care? That was someone's… father, for all you know."_

_He pocketed the Zydrate with a frustrated sigh. "It's my job. I happen to like it. Why so sensitive, angel? You're having dinner in a graveyard, and you didn't seem to mind my help filling a little glass vial a few nights ago."_

_She slammed the book shut. "You were only there because Rotti was paying you."_

_He scratched his head. "You'll have to explain that one to me. I thought that bitch Amber's bodyguards hauled me off and tied me up. After," he said, holding up a finger for emphasis, "she cleaned me out."_

" _Ugh."_

" _You don't want the Zydrate?"_

_She shook her head. "I'll never touch that stuff. Ever."_

_He paused. Graverobber wasn't stupid; he'd read the Evening Slice. The Wallace girl wasn't sick, just scared and very alone, now. She was hunched over pitifully. "What are you doing here?"_

" _Family. My mom," she explained, looking up at him. "The house is too quiet."_

" _You'll manage. We all do." He put his hands in his pockets._

" _Yeah, I know." She scuffed her boot on the ground. Adorable. "There's a tunnel through here to my house."_

_He smirked. "Word of advice, kid: Don't give strangers directions to your house."_

_Her eyes widened, as if it had truly just occurred to her that it would be a bad idea. "Well, it locks," she tried. Now that he thought about it, he did remember her trying to run in through that door the night they met. She'd been locked out._

_She put her book down and hauled herself to her feet and said coldly, "It's late."_

_"On the contrary, it is very early. Why so cold, little one?"_

_She glared at him, gathering her things up in her arms and cradling them against her chest. In a voice as icy as if he'd killed someone, she hissed, "You... you know what you did!"_

_"... I saved you. Twice."_

_"Mom," she said bitterly._

_"Come again?"_

_"You- you talked me into getting the Zydrate, I didn't want to, and you told me to." Oh, oh dear. She was crying, sniveling. The next words were said in the most heart-wrenching, mewling squeak he'd ever heard: "You made me do that to my mommy."_

_His brain froze. Anger. Yeah, he hadn't felt that in a while. "What?"_

_"The body, the one you got that Zydrate from," and Graverobber noticed how good the word of the cure he peddled sounded from her mouth, "it was my mom. You dug her up and made me..."_

_Rotti Largo. The body he'd stolen from the chair behind the glass wall. No. If he wasn't already dead, he'd kill the bastard himself. They'd both been duped. He'd been fooled by omission, and she'd been tricked into thinking... what, that it was all his fault? He couldn't have known. He forced himself to stay calm, retain that cool mask._

_"I didn't know," he said with a shrug._

_"She looks just like me," she said through tightly gritted teeth in a valiant effort to keep him from hearing the wobbly sobs tearing at her voice. "You made me do that to my mom."_

_He turned his head and squinted. Yeah, the resemblance was pretty striking, now that he thought about it. She couldn't honestly blame him for not seeing it before; he had been upside down and half blind with fear. "I did not force you to do anything. You suggested it, remember? Yes, I stole the body. I wasn't told who it was and so, unaware of the identity, I did what I was paid to do, Amber's guards knocked me out, and I woke up hanging from the ceiling."_

_"I don't care! I lost everything." She buried her head in her arms._

_"Kid." He put a hand on her shoulder. She flinched. "Kid, let me make it up to you."_

_She sniffed. "How?"_

_"Some company? You look like you could use a friend."_   
  


* * *

  
It had all started there. He'd offered his friendship and shown her around the city some, but neither of them could have predicted where their acquaintanceship would end up. Life was maddeningly unsimple like that. He broke into her room at the Largo's again and she wasn't there. She'd vacated, taking with her all the objects she'd personalized the space with. No bugs, or teddy bears, or posters of Blind Mag. He sat on the bed. How was he supposed to find her now?

"She's not here," Amber called from the doorway. She gathered her mocha dark hair over her shoulder and looked a bit sad, mournful.

"Well, duh." He stretched. "Where is she?"

"Why should I tell you? You're mean to me. How do I know you won't make her cry, too?" She approached and touched his cheek; he smiled at her. "Convince me you deserve to know what is going on."

He seized her shoulders and threw her onto the bed, effectively pinning her body while granting her arms limited mobility. "Check my trousers if you want proof."

"That's original. Shouldn't we close the door first?" she said, licking her lips.

"Very funny, Miss Sweet."

Deciding he meant it, she touched his legs, felt the conspicuously empty holsters. She searched a bit frantically. "Where's your damn Z?" she shrieked. "You always got some, dear, so where are you hiding it? Give it to me, gimme!"

Her hands were scrabbling, nails digging against the fabric. He sprang to his feet. "I scored some earlier today and sold it. I'm out." She looked ready to lunge at him in desperation. Amber had her own supply of GeneCo grade Zydrate, but everyone knew that was hopelessly ineffective compared to Street Z.

"You mean it, huh?" She smoothed her hair and scowled. "Fine. I'm sending her where she has a chance. No one here gets to be anybody for long; you should know that by now. Out of this place, she could survive, and she'll be out of my hair."

"And where is this place, Amber?" he asked impatiently.

"Off of this island forever, so she can see the world, like my father promised she could." She examined her nails, casting her heavily made-up eyes down to hide her sudden sadness. He took in stride that there was something past the end of the world, and Shilo was going there. "You want better for her, don't you? Or will you selfishly insist on being that albatross around her pretty, white neck?"

"Yes, I want better for her. I don't think sending her away all alone is proper, call me old-fashioned. And the albatross was good luck until some idiot killed it." She stared at him blankly. "It's from a poem, Amber."

She rolled her eyes. "If you want to go to her, be my guest. You'll have to be quick. The 'copter's departing soon."

"As in, helicopter, the death contraption that flies?" he said. She smirked. "Where?"

"The roof of GeneCo Towers. Take Pavi's ID. The freak left it in my dress." She took it out of her pocket and tossed it to him. He headed for the window. She whined, "Graverobber, where will I get the glow from now?"

"Princess, you could get it yourself." He grinned. "Been swell knowing you, Amber."

The idea pleased her; a wide smile stretched between her sweet and wrinkled the skin around her eyes. "Give her a kiss for me, darling."

Amber Sweet as a graverobber. Why not? Stranger things had happened.

He ran the whole way there, and the elevator couldn't go fast enough. Sure enough, a red and ancient-looking helicopter was on the roof. Shilo watched with interest as a pilot pointed out the various parts of the craft to her. It was mercilessly cold up here, and she was bundled up in a sweater with the hood pulled up.

"Shilo!" he said, loud considering he was out of breath. Hands on his knees, he panted. Shit, he was really out of shape. "Kid!"

She turned, registered a smile. He jogged to catch up with her.

"You're leaving?" he said.

"I am. Forever, according to Amber." A weight looked to have been taken from her shoulders; she was finally and truly free. But did this escape into the future include him? He wasn't so sure, standing here, if she would be better off without any ties to her former, troubled life. "It means leaving it all behind. Except... you helped me figure out this world. It stands to reason that I could use your help for whatever comes next."

"You sure? That would mean you're stuck with me," he said softly.

"I think I could cope," she teased. She stood on tiptoe to kiss him tenderly. When they broke apart, she murmured close to his mouth, "By the way, you are kind of amazing in bed. Um, forget the kind of. I loved it."

"There's more where that came from, Shilo." He was all prepared to kiss her again, but the pilot cleared his throat and they stopped.

"Him. We're taking him with us," Shilo said, pointing at Graverobber. He beamed.

"Yes, miss. Is that why you had us waiting around?" the man laughed, and she blushed, offering no response. That was confirmation enough to put a bounce in Graverobber's step. They took their seats, closed the door, and the blades of the helicopter started their noisy motion.

Graverobber buckled Shilo in, setting his arm around her. "I've never been in one of these!" she yelled over the noise.

"Neither have I!" he yelled back.

She peered out the window, and since her attention was currently elsewhere, he slyly moved the necklace from his pocket to hers. He'd sold his Zydrate, all for cash, and bought a necklace identical to the one he'd seen on that wealthy corpse. Shilo wouldn't want an offering stolen from the dead.

They left the ground. He'd be presumed dead by the cops and the Zydrate Support Network. Amber would sell some magnificently impossible story about Shilo's fate, and that was that. The girl's eyes grew tired after watching the outside world for some time, and she dozed off resting on his shoulder. Pleasant dreams made her smile and sigh, quite different from the thrashing tumult of her long gone nightmares. She'd gone through hell to find her peace.

They'd both earned this. They had a chance for a new life together.

"Help me, girl," he said quietly. "Terrifying though the thought may be, I love you." And with the moonlight kissing her skin, she was beautiful and bright as morning. "Till the end of the world."

 


End file.
